


A magical love affair

by charmed92



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood Trauma, F/M, Friendship/Love, Non-Canon Relationship, Sexual Content, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2019-11-06 10:39:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 47,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17938232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmed92/pseuds/charmed92
Summary: In July 1978, a distraught Petunia Evans and devastated Severus Snape stumble upon each other. The childhood nemesis share some drinks, pour their hearts out to each other in their drunken mindsets and spend a night of passion and comfort together. Albeit they're moving at lightning speed in their relationship and dangers await them, they hope to master everything together.





	1. Prologue – Waking up was a mistake!

**Author's Note:**

> This story will play in the Marauder's Time, starting in 1978, and span into the 1990s. It will be AU, non-canon and rated M because it will contain distressing topics like spousal abuse, physical assault, and depression as well as descriptions of physical interaction of sexual or violent nature. So be warned and only read it, if you are over 16. The main ship will be PE/SS, so if you don't like these two together, please refrain from reading my story.
> 
> I hope that you will enjoy reading it.

Severus Snape's bedroom, Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Nineteen-years-old Petunia Evans cuddled up to the teddy bear in her arms with a smile on her face and a dreamy look in her eyes. She knew that she shouldn't still be attached to her favorite, light-brown, worn teddy bear Sammy, which has been a gift to her birth from her beloved grandma Daisy, and missed his right ear since a violent ruffle with Lily when she was ten, but she loved cuddling it in her sleep, feeling its warmth and fluffy fake fur. Besides that, it gave her the feeling of being loved, safe and cared for. Her mother Violet tried to ban it from her room because a young lady, who studied taxation and business economics at the esteemed University of Warwick near Coventry, hoped to get a marriage proposal from her boyfriend Vernon Dursley and tried to act, talk and dress like a well-mannered, modest young lady, shouldn't still need a teddy to sleep peacefully at night. Her sister Lily mocked her for it since she was fifteen and transfigured Sammy once into a snake with her freaky magical powers. Only a screaming match and a fake threat to send out a love letter in her name to this rude, good-for-nothing and freaky friend of hers, Severus Snape, who was totally obsessed with Lily and so undoubtedly in love with her, that it made Petunia cringe, on the one hand, jealous on the other hand, convinced Lily to turn it back into her beloved teddy bear. But as Petunia snuggled closer to Sammy, she noticed with horror in her eyes and ringing alarm bells in her head that the soft, warm object in her arms couldn't be Sammy, because it breathed and was covered with shiny, soft black hair. Suppressing the scream that wanted to escape her rosy, luscious lips, Petunias eyes popped open. She guessed, she looked like a deer caught in the headlights and studied frantically her environment. As she realized that she was naked beneath the fluffy blanket, Petunia's mind went into panic mode and she tried hysterically not to hyperventilate.

"Ok, Petunia. Don't panic. There must be an easy explanation for your clothes-less state and your waking up naked in a foreign bed. It can't be that you lost your virginity yesterday to some random stranger, who could be a pervert, criminal or drug addict as far as you know. Compose yourself, study your environment closely and try to remember anything in your foggy head. But don't, under any circumstances, wake the man beside you. He might try to attack you and have his way with you," Petunia talked wildly to herself in her mind, schooled her features and studied her surroundings while clutching desperately with her hands onto her blanket in an ill attempt to cover her modesty. Looking around the foreign room, Petunia noticed with shock its worn-out, threadbare state. The small, single window was covered with a thick layer of dust so that she could vaguely make out a polluted, dirty river in front of it. The interior of the room consisted of a shabby, broken looking small maple closet; a threadbare, covered with scribbles, desk, on which strange herbs, books, and parchment were neatly organized; a shabby, faded maple shelf, which was filled to the bust with odd-looking colorful books, a huge cauldron as well as many jars with odd-looking items; and the huge, comfortable maple bed with a hard mattress done with cold, dark forest green silk bedsheets, that she currently tried to use as a shelter from her bedfellow. Regarding the décor of the room, Petunia registered the light grey painted walls, the white painted ceiling and the faded wooden floor, which was covered in the middle of the room by a forest green carpet. One poster of a foreign looking, green and silver crest of a serpent hang on the door. Besides that, the room lacked any personal items such as happy family pictures, football posters or model cars, that she would normally expect to see in a room of a male mid-twenty-years-old. Thanks to the rising summer sun, the room was illuminated by a soft light that lessened it's dark and broody look somewhat. But Petunia couldn't detect where she was by her first observations. Calming her bubbling nerves with a deep breath, she searched for new clues.

Focussing her sapphire blue eyes on the titles of the books on the self on the right side of the bed to learn more about her bedfellow, Petunia stumbled upon the words "history", "dark arts", "defense", "herbs" and "science". Her first destressing thought was that the man beside her must be some crazed scientist or drug dealer who mixed his own substances with the help of this silly looking cauldron and books because she couldn't explain to herself the existence of the huge amount of herbs and creepy looking jars. A chill went down her back, she started to panic again and searched frantically for a way out of this hell. Despite her panicked mind, Petunia began to add her observations to a wider picture. A cauldron, threadbare furniture, strange looking jars, and herbs, a dirty river in front of a window, the colors green, grey and silver … With a startle, widened eyes and a sharp intake of breath, Petunia recognized the identity of her bedfellow. She had been snuggled close to the thin, albeit soft and warm, naked body of Severus Snape while being naked herself and without any memory of how she ended up here. She couldn't fathom her realization and frantically searched for a different one, but all the clues pointed in the direction of this awful, freaky and love-crazy about Lily Severus Snape. He needed the cauldron, jars and scientific books for some chemistry-like magical subject called Potions, in which he was – according to Lily – an unrecognized genius. The green and silver serpent's crest belonged to his Hogwarts house Slytherin. The dirty, polluted river flowed along directly behind his down-ridden street Spinner's End. The threadbare furniture and shabby look of this room connected itself with his impoverished upbringing. And Severus Snape was a thin, tall teenaged boy with obsidian black eyes, a huge hooked nose, onyx black, shoulder-length hair, and crooked teeth. Petunia hysterically put some stubborn strands of her honey blond, wavy, waist-length tousled hair behind her ear and searched in her foggy mind for some clues or snippets of memories that could explain, how she ended up here, naked, in bed with her childhood nemesis, of all places. As she concentrated all her willpower on searching her mind, she remembered being so distraught at Lily's engagement news and Vernon's obvious ogling of a slutty looking, curvy and buxom brunette woman in a café during their lunch date that she ran aimlessly with tear-covered cheeks and dissolved into sobs through Cokeworth. She recalled stopping at the park, where she and Lily had played happily as little children before magic destroyed everything, and meeting a sneering, angry looking Severus Snape. Focussing her thoughts on solving this mystery, snippets of memories began to attack Petunia all at ones. By the first flash, she realized that waking up wasn't the only mistake she had made in the last 12 hours.


	2. Chapter 1 – On the run from a nightmare!

Random streets, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia Evans was on the run. From her special, perfect sister Lily who had announced her exciting engagement news with a beaming smile, happy tears, showing off of her huge, glittering with a central Ruby surrounded by little diamonds, engagement ring and gushes about her perfect fiancé James Potter. From her impulsive, often times mean boyfriend of one year Vernon Dursley. A twenty-five-years-old, bulky blonde with little, mean-looking amber eyes, a round, easily turning red face and a silly, dirty-blonde mustache, who had studied mechanical engineering and business economics at the University of Warwick and worked as a salesman for a drill-making company Grunnings located in Surrey. This afternoon, he had reduced her to tears, hurt her fragile feelings publicly and set off her aimless flight through the sunny, dusty streets of Cokeworth, by ogling a curvy, buxom brunette with hungry eyes, mocking her for her thin, boyish figure and her favorite floral dress and complaining about her continued studies in taxation on their lunch date in the only existing café in Cokeworth "Emma's Garden".

At first, Petunia had tried to mask her hurt feelings behind a mask of indifference, reprimand him for his ogling of other women with a stern look and respond to his babblings about his irresponsible, lazy and unintelligent colleagues with faked rapt attention; throwing in the usual nod or one-letter-word at a convenient time and smiling to his silly jokes as expected. But Vernon kept eyeing the buxom brunette with lustful eyes, grumbling redfaced and in a raised voice about the issues at Grunnings and questioning Petunia's skills as a proper housewife as well as criticizing her outfit, so that she nervously put some of her honey-blonde locks behind her ear, twisted her fingers with a distraught expression on her face in her lap and occasionally straightened out the non-existent creases in her cream, covered in a lovely colorful floral pattern of dark red and lilac roses, knee-length summer dress. When other customers started to gaze in their direction, exchanging whispers about the poor Evan's girl and Vernon kept swallowing his strawberry cake slice between his rants like a Neanderthal, Petunia lost her cool, dissolved into tears and left the cafè hurriedly without looking back at her dumbfounded boyfriend.

She ran at a quick pace through the silent, sunny streets of Cokeworth. Her honey-blonde wavy hair flying around her face, her tear-stained cheeks glowing pink by the physical exercise and her embarrassment and her breath coming out in heavy, sob-stricken and closely followed puffs. Petunia knew that she didn't act like a proper young lady from a middle-class family by breaking down. Her mother Violet taught her how to act like a well-educated, lovely young woman with manners, decorum, and modesty and would get a fit when she heard about her daughter's utter failure. A lovely young woman controlled her facial expressions in any situation instead of breaking down in tears. She listened closely, with rapt attention and a happy smile on her face, to the stories of her boyfriend instead of tuning his words out and zoning out in her own miserable thoughts. And she walked calmly, self-confident and with steady steps through the streets instead of running like a scared chicken at full speed aimlessly through her surroundings. But Petunia couldn't act like a proper young lady today and she frankly didn't care about the stares, opinions, and gossip of the inhabitants of Cokeworth for the first time in her life.

Petunia was utterly distraught by the behavior of her boyfriend and the engagement news of her little sister Lily. Petunia wallowed in her own self-pity, passing every building, passer-by, and bicycles without a glance. She knew that she would always be second best to Lily. She wasn't as beautiful, talented, kind, vibrant and charming as she. Her parents awed proud at Lily every time she managed to produce a potion, conjure an object or invent a charm and gushed about her kind-heartedness to their relatives. With a twinge in her heart, overwhelmed by her emotions of envy, jealousy, loneliness, and sadness, Petunia remembered how she had tried to gain her parents' attention, love, and interests without success. She had excelled in school, studying hard to get top marks especially in Mathematics, Science, and Economics since her father, Henry Evans, worked as a financial advisor in a law office. She had hoped to gain his praise by sharing his interest. She had worked as a shop girl on the side, managing with difficulty to jungle her schoolwork with her part-time job, to earn her own money and not burden the family finances. She had learned how to cook, bake, clean the house, do the laundry and iron to relieve her mother from her household chores. She had learned from her how to be the perfect young lady. She had even researched everything about the newest fashion trends, beauty cosmetics and behavior of a modern woman, taken more care to always look her best and behave according to the rules of society, but nothing was good enough to enchant her parents. All they did was to compare her unfairly to her sister so that Petunia felt constantly as the unloved, forgotten daughter. She knew, that her parents probably loved her and wanted to see her happy, but their constant ignorance or their little enthusiasm they expressed for her achievements, hurt her deeply.

Naively, she thought that studying taxation in Coventry away from home, meeting new people and hanging out with girls that understood her and shared her interests or boys that admired her for her intelligence, independence, and down-to-earth attitude would make her happy. And possibly even open her parents' eyes for her achievements, verifying the old saying "The heart grows fonder with distance", but nothing really changed for the better. Sure, Petunia met Vernon at a down-key, lovely university party, where alumni and current students of the business economics courses at Warwick University exchanged their experiences, career chances and dreams for the future, dated him for roughly fourteen months now and established herself as an intern in a huge law firm. But in spite of this, she still felt lonely, unhappy and unloved. Her relationship with Vernon was a real farce because he constantly criticized her for everything, never listened to her issues and ogled other women. Sometimes, he even shouted red-faced in his boisterous voice at her for a mistake she had made. Like wearing the wrong dress or not calling him back fast enough. Therefore Petunia often interacted scared, guarded and docile with him to prevent one of his scary, verbal abusing outbursts. Once, he had even pushed her into a shelf, because she hadn't bought him his favorite sweets. An incident that shook Petunia to her core and urged her to walk on eggshells around him. She realized that she was trapped in an unhappy, abusive relationship, which caused her pain, sorrow, and trauma. But she couldn't find a way out of it. She didn't have any best girlfriend she could talk to. Her relationship with Lily was destroyed beyond repair and she didn't want to give her the satisfaction to say "I told you so" by confessing her unhappy romance because Lily had warned her about Vernon's dominant behavior after their first meeting. And her mother wouldn't believe her stories of verbal and physical abuse due to the perfect maskVernon put on in their present.

He treated her like a real gentleman. Setting her chair in place, gifting her flowers as a welcome present, kissing her on the cheek in greeting and gushing about her achievements at the University and her cooking skills, when her parents were around. It was as if he had a split personality like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the company of her parents, he acted like the kind-hearted, nice Dr. Jekyll. Paying her compliments for her beauty or intelligence, gazing lovely at her or listening with interest to her stories. Behind closed doors, he acted like the cruel, angry Mr. Hyde. Mocking her for her hideous looks or lack of intelligence, staring at her with rage in his beady eyes or ignoring her words. Besides that, he constantly tried to pressure her into sleeping with him or quitting her courses at University. When he looked at her hungrily with lustful eyes, intensified their kisses and touched her breasts ungentle, Petunia panicked and frantically searched for a way out. She put him off of going further by stating that she wanted to wait for sexual intercourse until her marriage because she dreamed of losing her virginity to her husband in her wedding night or faking a migraine attack. With a vicious look, some hurtful insults and annoyed grumblings, Vernon would stop his actions, leave her dorm and masturbate with lustful mourns, low grunts and boisterous screams in her bathroom. Petunia would wait these tense moments out in her dorm, nervously fidgeting with her fingers, focusing on the sound of her heartbeat and blocking out Vernon's sex noises. After Vernon's hasty leave, Petunia would cry herself into sleep, wallowing in self-pity and being hunted by mocking voices that predicted her a miserable life in solitude, isolation, and submission to Vernon because nobody could ever love her.

Although Petunia realized that she needed to break it off with Vernon to not end up as a broken, abused and submissive desperate housewife, she didn't have the courage and power to do it. She was scared of Vernon's reaction and didn't want to face a life in loneliness, emotional coldness and isolation. So she stayed with Vernon and endured his abuse. Due to her bottling everything up in herself, not opening up to her family or an advice center, Petunia felt desperate, alone and emotionally exhausted every day. In public, she tried to numb herself, compose her thoughts and mask her emotions so that she seemed like a happy, satisfied young woman, who was in love with her boyfriend and managed her life without issues. But today, as Vernon had ogled this buxom woman and mocked her for her look openly in public, Petunia's mask cracked, her hidden emotions bubbled up and she needed to run. Running away disorientated from the mess and nightmare that was her life.


	3. Chapter 2 – Life hurts like hell!

Park near Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Severus Snape sipped some gulps from his stolen, dusty and cheap Whiskey bottle. Actually, it originally belonged to the well-stocked provisions of cheap hard liquor owned by his alcoholic, good-for-nothing bastard of a "father" Tobias. But Tobias would never again be able to drink his beloved, brain cells reducing liquor because he currently awaited trial in a bleak Muggle prison under the charges of homicide. He had beaten his wife Eileen in a drug-and-alcohol-fueled state of blind rage to death last June. Got arrested by the Muggle police thanks to the call of a noisy old Muggle and awaited his prison sentence in a cell near Manchester. Thinking about the murder of his beloved mum at the hands of her abusive husband, Severus felt an unthinkable rage bubbling up in him. A thirst for revenge tried to overwhelm him and a mixed basket of guilt and regret attacked his depressed soul.

He should have been able to protect his mum against the abuse from Tobias. After all, he was a powerful, young, well-trained in the Dark Arts, wizard who could deal with the pathetic, drunken and jobless inhuman monster Tobias. He should have brewed a dark potion for Tobias or hexed him into oblivion. He could have brewed a Mind-Erasing Potion that would have let him lose all his memories of his freakish family, escaping from Cokeworth without a memory and living somewhere else on the streets. A Personality-Altering Potion that would have changed his violent, bullying and miserable personality into a kind, proud of his family and ambitious in finding a new job, fake man in his mid-forties. Or a Health-Disturbing Potion that would have weakened him constantly, so that he couldn't leave his bed and scream insults at his wife or beat her into a frail, broken and submissive woman. Sure, the sanctions for brewing these illegal potions, administering them to a Muggle and altering his life against his will, would have been some years in Azkaban. But Severus now wished that he would have taken this chance.

But he hadn't done anything. Consequently, his mum was now dead. A cold corpse in a Muggle pauper's grave. After suffering nearly twenty years under the verbal as well as physical abuse of her alcoholic husband. Under her impoverished, foreign and miserable life in the Muggle world. Under the disinheritance, rejection, and hatred of her parents, the wealthy and esteemed Pureblood Princes, for marrying a working-class Muggle. Under the isolation from the Wizarding world and her magical roots and the degeneration of her magical powers. The vibrant, raven-black haired and blue-eyed young woman in the few magical photos who waved happily in the camera, joked around with her friends, played highly concentrated Gobstones or beamed with happiness and pride showing her Hogwarts certificate, had been reduced to a sickly skinny, haggard and depressed looking woman, whose beauty had faded, magical powers had nearly vanquished and sane mind had crumbled into pieces. She was left a broken, sorrowful and hopeless woman by the supposed love of her life. A man, who had vowed in a church, in front of the Muggle God to always love, protect and support his wife, in good times as well as in bad times.

Severus shook his head mercilessly and broke out into a miserable, hysterical sounding laugh while thinking about the stupidity of the Muggles. To believe in some almighty, merciful deity, who forgave them for their sins and guided them on their life paths because he supposedly loved them unconditionally and only wanted the best for them. In Severus opinion, there wasn't some puppet player in the universe, who controlled the actions, morals and thinking of all human beings as if they were his unfree, brain- and heartless puppets. Because every human could act deliberately thanks to its free will, intelligence, and emotions. And if your father was a sadistic, violent, unintelligent and lazy alcoholic without a heart, your life really sucked. Severus knew from his own experience that positive emotions like love, friendship, happiness, and joy only caused pain. Love only hurts, because it could reduce you into a lovesick fool who was obsessed with his special someone, made awful life choices and put on an act to earn the approval of his love. So that you lost yourself in the end and threw away your life, only to be rejected, abandoned and broken.

In fact, Severus knew from wistful stories of his mum, that she met Tobias in a Muggle restaurant, fell quickly in love with him and married him to live a life in happiness, joy, and love - caught in the misconception of him being her soulmate. But after one year of blissful happiness, Tobias had shown his true colors. He had criticized and belittled Eileen for everything. Her poor cooking skills, her fashionable outfits, her asking after his workday. He had screamed profanities and insults at her for being a bad housewife, not cleaning the house spotless enough, not managing her small housekeeping money smart enough, not washing the laundry well enough. And he had controlled her life. No reading of strange books, no waving around with a stick, no meetings with female neighbors.

Eileen had confessed to him that she had realized too late how difficult a relationship between a witch and a Muggle could be. Especially, since she had hidden her identity as a witch out of fear for being rejected until Severus displayed his first accidental magic as a three-month-old tot. She had been so fascinated with the newness of the Muggle world. Its technical devices and miracle inventions, its modern music culture and fashion trends, at first that she hadn't realized what a life without magic would mean for her. In a seldom moment of self-reflection, she had revealed to Severus that especially the differences between them had attracted Eileen magically to Tobias. She had been an outgoing, smiling, beloved by her parents, young witch, just out of Hogwarts who loved reading, brewing potions or playing Gobstones and had very little life experience thanks to her sheltered, wealthy life.

He had been an introverted, scowling orphaned young man of twenty-two years who had finished school without higher education, worked at a mill in the small, bleak industrial town Cokeworth, lived in a little house for industrial workers in impoverished circumstances and loved to watch football games. Eileen had naively thought that her soulmate could accept her magical abilities and she living a simple life as a Muggle. But alas, Tobias had rejected her and their little boy thanks to their magical powers for being freakish servants of the devil. He had tried to cure them of their evilness by hiding Eileen's wand and meager magical possessions. Her Magical History, Charms, Potions, Transfiguration and Herbology books, Eileen's cauldron, magical photos/documents, quills, parchment and ink pot.

And, after he had lost his job six years ago, he had tried to cure them more often by beating their wickedness out of them. Eileen had wanted to escape this hell in some rare moments of deviance by running back to her parents or using her wand. But she had been emotionally too broken and alienated from her magical powers that she couldn't successfully manage a non-verbal, wand-less "Accio wand". So she had excepted her fate, numbed her feelings of sadness, depression, and betrayal with liquor and had tried to be the obedient, lovely housewife Tobias wanted her to be. But all had been for naught because she was beaten to death by her husband, her alleged soulmate, on a sunny day in June for forgetting to buy his favorite beer and opening up to a neighbor about her sorrows.

A sole tear leaked down of Severus obsidian eyes, as he recalled the moment he had been informed of her death. Then despite not defending him against the physical abuse of Tobias, leaving him or seeking help, Eileen had been a lovely mother. She had told her beloved boy every day how much she loved him and how special he was. She had read to him in secretive hours bedtime stories of the Magical world, taught him how to brew his first potion and told him marvelous tales of her time in Hogwarts, her former life at Prince Manor and the adventures in the Wizarding world. Consequently, her murder had hit Severus hard and caused him burning feelings of guilt, regret, and revenge. Especially, since he hadn't been able to attend her funeral and say goodbye to her. For Dumbledore and Slughorn had only informed him of her passing away due to her being beaten to death by her alcoholic, cruel monster of a husband on his graduation day.

They had explained to him that they hadn't wanted to burden him with grief during his NEWTs and possibly risk his future career prospects. Severus had been overwhelmed by an instant rush of shock, grief, anger, revenge, and guilt so that he had needed to apply his Occlumency shields to not break down. He remembered that he had been only vaguely able to hear the voices of the two elder wizards as if they spoke through thick layers of wool and had zoned out on them. Lost in pictures and memories of his mum. Severus resented them for making this decision for him and not allowing him to attend his own mother's funeral and felt for the tenth time like a cheat, failure, and trash. Because it seemed that he wasn't important enough to consider his opinion and treat him like a human being. Or, as his cruel, bullying and arrogant Hogwarts nemesis' the Marauders put it, a freak like him shouldn't even have been allowed to live.

To add insult to injury, on his hastily way out of Hogwarts, hiding his grief behind a cold mask of indifference, he had witnessed the love of his life Lily Evans accepting a marriage proposal with happy tears, a beaming smile and a series of kisses from his bully James Potter. Originally, Severus had thought, that he couldn't feel anything any more thanks to the numbness that had enveloped his body following the news of the murder of his beloved mum. But this scene had caused his grief-stricken heart to break in two, paralyzed him for a moment and burned itself into his memory. His mental shields had broken down. The feelings of betrayal, anger, regret, and loneliness attacking him full force and the only thing he could do without making an utter fool of himself had been to run into his dorm, pack his things in record time and leave Hogwarts without a glance back or a goodbye.

Apparating back to Spinner's End in Cokeworth, Severus had landed on shaky legs in the secluded backyard area of his parental hovel, balancing his trunk via magic behind him and looking utterly devastated. Storing his meager possessions quickly in his room, grabbing a Whiskey bottle on his way out and paying attention to not look on the kitchen floor, where his mother's dead, beaten body had lain roughly one month ago, Severus had left this creepy, haunted with ghost from his past hovel and run to the nearby park, where he drowned his sorrows in alcohol. He always knew that life wasn't fair, hurt like hell and never granted him any happiness. But this day showed him that his life was his own personal hell. And he wanted to forget this fact as soon as possible.


	4. Chapter 3 – Misery loves company!

Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia stopped her mad run abruptly, clutching her sides and breathing heavily. She imagined that she looked like a mess. Tear-stricken cheeks, tousled honey-blond curls, sad eyes and dressed in a ruffled cream floral dress. Her legs hurt from her flight at top speed because her dark red high-heeled sandals weren't the right shoes for a run. Besides that, her heart was pounding wildly due to her exhausting exercise, so that she could hear its loud thumping "kogong, kogong,…" clearly vibrating in her ears. And she needed to bend over, loudly huffing, thanks to her stitches. Petunia thought mockingly that she really needed to train more to stay fit enough to run out on her boyfriend every time he treated her unfairly. But Petunia wasn't an athletic girl who jogged in her free-time to stay fit or loved to dance. She absolutely hated every sport because she didn't have the muscles to win in any competition or the willpower as well as time to exercise a few times a week. Sure, training kept you fit and could help you to forget your sorrows for a while, but Petunia didn't see the appeal in sweating your body fat out in a shirt and shorts or working out until exhaustion in a bleak, cold fitness studio. Furthermore, Petunia didn't need to lose some pounds because she could always maintain her thin, curveless figure thanks to her healthy diet and fortunate genes. Consequently, she was now out of breath, tired and sweaty, so that she desperately needed to find a spot to rest for a while.

Thanks to her disorientated, aimless running through Cokeworth, Petunia didn't know where she was at the moment and needed some time to orientate herself. Turning her head in all directions and looking around at her environment, she realized, that she must have gotten to the bleak, broken and foul-smelling impoverished former industrial area of Cokeworth, Spinner's End. Everywhere she could see the dirty, broken and decaying brick houses of the now jobless, former industrial employees. The garbage piling up on the rotten, misshapen front yards and broken, corroded cars parking on the streets. The foul smell of rotten, moldy and sour foods, industrial exhaust gases and vomit lingered in the air and almost forced Petunia to empty her stomach. She needed to get out of this area very soon because it wasn't safe for a lonely, hurt and confused young lady to venture out here alone. Behind every corner, an alcoholic could insult her verbally, a high drug addict could attack her physically, a criminal thief could try to steal her purse or a sick pervert could sexually assault her. With panic in her eyes and an uneasy feeling, Petunia taxed her brain for some nearby spot where she would be safe. After one minute of thinking, it suddenly dawned on her.

Nearby, five minutes away from this area, was a green park with lovely willow and cherry trees, where Lily and she had almost played hide-and-seek, skipped rope or gone on the swings every day in their childhood. Petunia knew that the playground nowadays was neglected, overgrown and covered in garbage, because the community hadn't got the money to lawn the grass, weed the grounds or maintain the swings, climbing frame or rocking horses in good shape. Therefore, the play equipment was rusty, broken or covered in weed and no children visited here anymore. Sure, some lonely teens, depressed adults or adventurous kids still visited it occasionally. But Petunia hoped that no one would be here today because she wasn't in the mood to talk to someone or explain her tear-stained cheeks. She only wanted some time alone to think about her life and reflect on her relationship with Vernon. Sure, she realized that wallowing in self-pity and despair wouldn't improve her mood, heal her hurt soul or change her miserable life, but she couldn't run to her parents to confess her sorrows to them due to their strained relationship. And she wouldn't pour out her soul to her perfect sister Lily due to their difficult relationship riddled with emotions like envy, jealousy, resentment, and mistrust. So she would bottle everything up inside her again and hope that she would be brave and sane enough to break it off with Vernon in the morning. Although Petunia knew, if she was being honest with herself, that she probably would apologize for her behavior to Vernon in the morning and beg him to not leave her out of fear for ending up alone like an unloved, barmy and isolated old maid.

So, Petunia banished all her sad thoughts, took a deep breath and set off in a run to the park. Thanks to many strolls with Lily back in her childhood days, she knew the way like the back of her hand, so that she arrived without any difficulties. Sure, it looked widely different as she remembered it. But it still exuded a pleasant sense of calm, a feeling of security and the fond memories of happily spent childhood moments with her sister. Petunia stepped into the park, cautious to not stumble upon some overgrown flowers or thrown around tins and set herself on the rusty swing. She took off her high-heeled sandals, massaged her swollen feet and put her beloved, dark red clutch onto the ground to be able to swing backward and forwards freely. A small smile graced Petunia's face as she felt the warm summer air blowing in her face and the soft grasses tickling her bare feet. She felt carefree and happy for a short moment, basking in the sun and enjoying her solitude. Until she noticed someone dressed in dark colors slumped in front of one red, broken rocking horse. At first, Petunia didn't know how to act. On the one hand, she knew that she should look if this person was okay because she didn't want to add the crime of failure to render assistance in an emergency to her growing list of failures. On the other hand, she feared that this slumped person was under the influence of drugs or alcohol and would attack her if she tried to help him.

Petunia's nagging conscience decided her dilemma in the end. She interrupted her swinging, put on her heels and got closer to the dark lump with a queasy feeling. On her way, she studied the other human being closely. He looked roughly around her age with a greasy raven-black mop on his head, a half-empty Whiskey bottle clutched in his right hand and clad in basic black jeans, a dark grey t-shirt with a V-neckline and black sneakers. Something about his spidery, long pale fingers seemed familiar to her, but Petunia couldn't see his face from her distance because his gaze was exclusively focused on the bottom in front of his shoes. Zooming her eyes in on his figure, she realized, that he wasn't sleeping or unconscious, but leaned with his back in a sitting position in front of the rocking horse. His tall, thin body bend over uncomfortably and he kept gazing onto the ground, while now and then taking a swig of his bottle. Reassured that he wasn't physically hurt, but only drowning his sorrows in alcohol, Petunia wanted to leave him in peace and return to her swing, when he raised his head and gazed at her with his piercing, empty and red from tears onyx black eyes. A cold shiver ran down her spine and her mouth opened in shock as she realized that this miserable, desperate figure was the former best friend of her sister Severus Snape.

Petunia had hated him at first sight because he had represented everything she loathed and brainwashed Lily with his colorful tales of the Magical world. In Petunia's opinion, this impoverished, arrogant and rude freak had alienated her sister from her by clouding her mind with speeches about the magical powers of charms, potions, and spells as well as with fabulous fairytales about Hogwarts, goblins, elves, dragons, vampires, and werewolves. Besides that, he had excluded Petunia with a sneer, arrogant look and insult – "You are only a Muggle" – from their adventures and had tried to hurt her with a cracking branch. He had been the first one to brand two contrasting emotions in her memories concerning magic. On one hand, fear of being hexed, poisoned or controlled by a witch or wizard. At the other hand, envy for not being able to do magic and experience the miracles of the Magical world. In her books, he was a mean, ill-mannered and Lily-crazy snarky git from an impoverished, abusive home. Her childhood nemesis who could only cause pain, misery, and devastation for others.

Petunia knew that he had lost Lily's friendship due to a racist slur that degraded her worth as a witch thanks to her being born to Muggle parents. Lily had warned her to stay away from him because he had supposedly joined a violent, bet on ruling the magical society and conquering the world by murdering, torturing and enslaving Muggles, Muggle-borns, Magical beings, and Magical creatures group led by a crazed dark wizard named Lord Voldemort. So logic screamed at Petunia to leave the park as quickly as possible. But Petunia had also learned recently from her mother that Severus abusive, jobless alcoholic father Tobias Snape had murdered his mum Eileen Prince Snape by beating her to death roughly one month ago. And despite her loathing of him, she couldn't help herself to empathize with him. Than if she was being honest with herself, she didn't wish him to die, lose his mother or suffer alone because she didn't wish this fate upon any human being.

Besides that, she had realized at the moment when his sorrowful onyx black eyes met her icy blue eye that he and she shared a similar fate. They were both unloved, loathed and lonely ill-tempered teens with broken hearts, no friends or family, destroyed dreams, not really as attractive rated looks, sarcastic humor and the wish to forget, who the society wrote off as basket cases. They suffered under the prejudices as well as expectations of their environment. So, out of an insane feeling of companionship, compassion and a need to talk to someone who could understand her, Petunia walked in front of Severus, looked him with a determined expression in the eyes and spoke to him in a confident, steady voice, "Hello, Severus. Fancy meeting you here. Would you mind sharing your Whiskey with me? I know that we aren't friends or like each other, far away from it. But I could really use some liquor to drown my sorrows and forget my misery. It seems like you had the same idea. So what do you have to lose? I promise that I won't say anything about your breakdown or your secrets to anyone. I don't even have someone to talk to anyway. So please share your Whiskey with me and perhaps we can help each other to find some hope for our futures or at least forget our hellish lives for one day." Petunia hopefully gazed at Severus, awaiting his reaction with bated breath and nervously chewing on her bottom lip. It seems the saying "Misery loves company" was true after all.


	5. Chapter 4 – Whiskey sharing with a childhood nemesis!

Park near Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Severus Snape opened his mouth in shock. He couldn't believe his eyes, ears, and senses. Perhaps his whiskey drinking had already clouded his mind and he was now living in an alternate universe, seeing phantasms and hearing acoustic hallucinations. Because the mighty, sneering Petunia Evans couldn't be standing in front of him with a tear-stained face, ruined makeup, tousled honey-blond locks and empty icy blue eyes asking him to share his whiskey with her. Well, his mind imagined really strange things in its drunken state. Perhaps he should stop drinking liquor at once because it really seemed to cost him his last brain cells. And he could surely use some of these to figure out what he wanted to do with his life.

If he should end it all by taking a self-developed, self-mixed poison. If he should crumble under the pressure of his Slytherin mates and join the hell-bent on conquering the Wizarding world and wiping out all Muggles, Squibs, Muggle-borns and Magical Creatures dark wizard Lord Voldemort he. If he should leave his past behind and start fresh over-seas or if he should stay in Britain, fulfill his dreams of becoming a renown potioneer by apprenticing under Master Nobel in Liverpool and fight for the unification of the Wizarding world? Severus was utterly lost, in grief by his beloved mum's murder and wanted to forget everything by drowning his sorrows in liquor. But even his hallucinations seemed to be hell-bent on mocking him and adding some more to his sorrows, because how could he otherwise explain the appearance of his childhood nemesis, Lily's snobby sister Petunia "Tuney" Evans in them?

Was it not even possible for his drunken mind to throw his enemies under the bus? How crazy must he be, if his own mind tormented him with images of his childhood foes? Severus really didn't want to get to the bottom of these questions, shook his head, squinted his eyes in high speed and pinched himself to awake from this nightmare. But alas, the hallucination of Petunia didn't vanquish. She only gazed at him with pitiful sapphire eyes, a raised eyebrow and her arms crossed as if she awaited him to react to her offer of a drunken heart-to-heart talk under enemies. Severus really became right upset with his mind now and got up from his slumped down position in front of a broken rocking horse in a flash. He tried to steady himself on his wobbly legs and staggered to his illusion. Then he screamed in his slurred, deep baritone with a blazing look in his obsidian eyes, "Get the fuck out of my head, Tuney".

To his utter shock, his Fata Morgana didn't disappear. Instead, she visibly flinched, blue eyes widened out of shock and gazed fearfully at him. After one short moment of a staring contest, she dropped her gaze on the floor, fidgeted with the hem of her rose-covered dress and seemed to seek shelter in her arms which she now looped around her body in a rocking motion. At this moment she looked like a younger version of his mum. Expressing the same fear of physical abuse in her eyes, adopting the same introverted position standing rigidly on the ground, radiating the same tenseness in her body and embracing herself like an unloved and frightened little girl.

This realization moved Severus deeply. He felt guilty for frightening his hallucination, loathed himself for acting like his criminal, alcoholic murderer of a father and broke down into sobs. With a crazed expression in his eyes, he walked up to the virtual Petunia. He took a deep breath between his sobs, tried to compose himself, touched her chin to level up her head and gazed out of sorrowful onyx eyes into her baby blues,

"I'm so sorry, Tuney. I didn't want to frighten you. I won't end up like this bastard Tobias who only felt power and joy by beating his wife up and seeing the fear in her eyes. I swear to you that I will never raise my hand against any woman. Please, forgive me for my outburst, but my emotions really overwhelm me at the moment and my life is a living hell.

My mum is dead, beaten to death by her alcoholic, good-for-nothing Muggle husband. And I didn't know about it until today. I couldn't even say goodbye to her or attend her funeral. Adding insult to injury, Lily is now engaged to this utterly arrogant, wealthy and Quidditch-crazed bully James Potter …", Severus interrupted his apology, wiping away one lonely tear in the corner of his right eye and turning away from his illusion.

Petunia couldn't help herself. For some insane reason, perhaps it was something like empathy, she felt the need to comfort him. So she put her left hand on his right shoulder. A half year ago, she would have only mocked him for his tears. She knew from Lily of his unflattering nickname "Snivellus" in Hogwarts. She would have sneered at him for his audacity to touch her face or rolled her eyes while laughing about his crazy, stalker-like obsession with Lily and his pathetic, unrequited love. But today, on the day, when her heart had finally been shattered into pieces by her abusive, unfaithful – at least in thoughts, gazes, and chats – boyfriend Vernon Dursley, when her mind replayed the engagement news of perfect Lily on endless playback with the feelings of envy, jealousy, fear, loneliness and isolation and when her self-confident crumbled under her status as the unloved, looked-upon plain-Jane elder sister or the mocked, picked upon and abused trophy girlfriend of Vernon Dursley, Petunia decided to be brave and tried to console her childhood nemesis.

Severus turned around abruptly as if her touch had burned him and stared with shameful eyes at her. "You're really here. My drunken mind didn't play me some trick. You really asked me to share my whiskey with you and to talk about my miserable life. Say, Tuney, what gives you the insane notion that I wanted to open up to you of all people? To my childhood bully, who called me "the freaky, awful Snape boy" and talked bad about me behind my back to Lily? How could I be stupid enough to trust you?", he asked her with anger and vulnerability in his voice, frantically trying, but failing, to not seem to interested in her answer.

Petunia took a deep breath, composed her emotions and replied in a flat voice, "As I have mentioned earlier, we aren't friends and don't like each other. So we can't expect too much comfort or encouraging words from another. Besides that, consoling other people is not really my specialty. Therefore, don't expect some miracle here. But I'm at the lowest point in my life right now and I don't have anybody to talk to. So I can at least pour out my heart to my drunken childhood nemesis who seems to be utterly devastated and unhappy himself to get it from my chest. The chances are high that we won't even remember this heart-to-heart talk in the morning thanks to our hopefully blacked out from alcohol consumption and emotional exhaustion minds. Come on, we really don't have anything to lose. Pull yourself together and share your whiskey and story with me. I can promise you that it won't be more pathetic than my life story."

Severus heard for the first time sincerity, vulnerability, and misery in Petunia's words. He was suddenly certain that she wouldn't hurt his trust and blab out his secrets and insecurities to anyone. Intrigued by the prospect of learning who hurt Petunia like this and reduced her to the vulnerable, wallowing in self-pity and looking utterly broken young woman and fed up with his self-imposed life restrictions – one had been, to never talk about your deepest secrets with an enemy, another, to never break down in public or expose his weaknesses to others - Severus decided to rebel for once against his own rules.

So, driven by the unfamiliar feeling of talking to someone, who could understand him, and filled with a sense of companionship, Severus led Petunia to his hideout. He indicated to her that they should sit down side-by-side on the overgrown grass and passed her the half-empty whiskey bottle. After Petunia had taken a huge gulp, coughed a few times while the whiskey was running down her throat, leaving a burning feeling in its wake and making her skin crawl, and composed herself somewhat, Severus continued in a numb voice, "Well, it seems like you can't hold your liquor as well as you thought, if you react to this first gulp like some dunder-headed first year. I really hope that you will survive this night of bonding between childhood nemesis without brain damage or alcohol poisoning because it would really be too bad to wake up in a world without your nagging, sneering and warm-hearted presence. Besides that, I don't want to add another dot to my long list of regrets and failures to lend assistance, so please refrain from dying tonight. So, don't you want to tell me what happened to mess you up like this? Did Lily transfigure your favorite jeans into a pillow of snakes?"

Petunia scoffed at his sarcastic tone, although she was baffled that he brought up the touchy topic Lily by himself. Therefore, she answered honestly, "Believe me, Severus, that I would have never dreamed of confessing my secrets to you. Such nightmares thankfully don't disturb my sleep. Or I might have already tried to jump out of a window. But, snark aside, I'm grateful that you, the arrogant, magically gifted and rude boy of my childhood, who always radiated the aura of being better than anyone else, especially a Muggle like me, took some time off your busy self-pitying schedule to listen and interact with me. I will bake you cookies for it first thing in the morning. If you must know, my utter misery has everything to do with the fact that my boyfriend is a verbally and physically abusive, buxom women ogling git who doesn't deserve me. Besides that, my unhappiness in life has everything to do with your magical parallel universe. But not like you might think. I don't despise you for your magical abilities. I actually envy you for them, because they make you special. And if I were special, magically gifted like Lily, perhaps my parents would start loving me. …", Petunia's voice cracked at the end, a sorrowful sob escaping her rosy lips.

At first, Severus was utterly shocked by her crying because he hadn't any experience in consoling desperate, crying, teenaged girls. Sure, he had comforted his mum in dark hours after the beatings of his father multiple times, but she had been his mum. They had loved each other so that their interactions were purely based on instinct without a lot of thinking. Contrary to this, Petunia was a young woman whom he didn't have any positive relationship with. And Severus didn't know a thing about young females. The only thing he knew was that they could be utterly moody and act like a jigsaw puzzle so that they seemed like a book with seven seals. But his instinct said Severus to put an arm around Petunia's shoulder. Consequently, the former childhood nemesis sat huddled up closely together on the broken playground, sharing a whiskey bottle and opening up about their sorrows. Stranger things have happened.


	6. Chapter 5 – Comfort drinks open up your mind!

Park near Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia couldn't believe what was happening today in this park. Here she shared an embrace with her childhood nemesis, the impoverished git Severus Snape to give each other solace and not feel so miserable anymore. She was so surprised by his actions that she at first flinched slightly away from his opened arms. But as she felt his warm, slender and pale arms around her, engulfing her in a sweet, albeit hesitant loose embrace and his warm, whiskey smelling breath graze her cheeks in rhythmical puffs, she couldn't turn him down, escape out of his hug or hurt his feelings. Because she felt cared for, understood and likable for the first time in months.

Sure, Petunia knew that these emotions were totally insane and produced by her devastated, chaotic and panicked mind so that they probably were only an illusion or spur of the moment dysfunction of her brain. But she nonetheless acted on them and reciprocated his hug tightly, basking in his warmth. She realized that they probably looked like an odd, mix-matched couple. He in his casual dark grey shirt and simple black jeans. She in her chic modest floral summer dress with dark red high-heeled sandals. But their facial expressions were the same. Tear-stained cheeks, tightly closed, puffy reddened eyes, sorrowful hanging labial angles and lips frozen into a miserable grimace. She realized that she actually should be really ashamed of her break down in public and her need for comfort in the arms of her odd, magically gifted childhood foe.

Her mother Violet had hammered the appropriate behavior of a young, modest lady into her head. Always keep smiling despite feeling awful. Always hide your real feelings behind a mask of cold indifference and never break down in the arms of some male in public. Don't show your vulnerability or pain to someone else. But Petunia couldn't be this robot-like, ice-cold lady today. And frankly speaking, she didn't care about these stupid societal rules of how to behave anymore. She only wanted to be herself for one day. Not the loved-starved, approval-seeking daughter who attended a cookery course in her free time to perfect her culinary skills in the hope to be praised by her mother or studied extra hard in Mathematics in the wish to be loved by her father. Neither the sneering, mean big sister who tried to hide her envy of Lily's magical skills and her pain over her preferential treatment from their parents by calling Lily a freak or ignoring her completely. Nor the docile, ladylike girlfriend who ignored her boyfriend's flirting with other women or tolerated his bullying by smiling mildly and fulfilling his wishes.

She realized that it was crazy. She had the urge to be herself in the presence of Severus Snape who supposedly hated everything Muggle and loathed her since she was a little girl. But Petunia felt this strange connection and sense of belonging today on this broken, bleak playground. Therefore, she didn't hide her tears and wasn't afraid to show him her ugliest side nor confess her darkest secrets because she trusted him to not talk about it with someone else. And he already expected the worst of her due to her behavior towards Lily or their childhood fights. In some strange way, it really felt deliberating to pour out her heart and show her true self to someone who wouldn't judge her or expected anything brilliant from her. Besides that, she could trust him to stay silent about her confessions and talk honestly and freely with her because she would know his secrets after their talk too and he had never sugarcoated anything with her.

So, Petunia stayed in his embrace for some minutes, breathed in his unique scent and basked in his body warmth, until she freed herself from his tight embrace with a regretful smile. She sat herself down beside him with self-assured movements and addressed him with a grateful look out of her sapphire blue eyes.

"Severus, I really must thank you for this hug because I needed some human contact and comfort like a fish the water to swim. And I know, how awkward and difficult it must be for you to console your childhood nemesis because I know that you aren't the most social, empathetic or friendly person in the world. And our past isn't exactly an ideal ground to build trust, understanding, and friendship upon," Petunia paused at his audible scoff and looked at him sheepishly, "but I somehow feel a strange connection to you thanks to our shared misery and really need to talk to someone who will listen and give me his honest opinion without sugarcoating anything. And I sense that you need this person too. So, in my books, this is a win-win situation. A possible way out of some really deep mess that I intend to use wholeheartedly. Do you also promise to be honest with me today and keep quiet about the stuff you will learn?".

Severus studied Petunia with a puzzled look. He really didn't know what he should think about this strange conversation. On the one hand, he wanted to turn around, leave this playground as fast as possible and let Petunia drown in her tears and self-pity because she deserved it for treating Lily like an outcast due to her magical powers or for badmouthing him thanks to his impoverished upbringing and dark aura. On the other hand, he was intrigued by Petunia's confession to envy him for his magical skills and to feel unloved by her parents as well as humiliated by her boyfriend. One supercilious oaf of a Muggle named Vernon Dursley that he only met once and despised at first sight for his snobbish attitude and pomposity. He would have never expected that Petunia longed to be a witch and could relate to her emotions of feeling unwanted and worthless. Well, these feelings were probably the virus of his life, that tormented him since his early childhood and never allowed him to be happy, carefree and optimistic.

So, he decided, to throw all caution to the wind, open up to Petunia about his sorrows without any tricks or acts and try to help her reflect on some things in her life. He knew that his choice might be insane, out of character for him and risky, because he normally was a private person, who guarded his dark secrets strictly and didn't care for other people besides Lily and his now deceased mum. So this opening up to someone would be a novel, insecure action, but he realized that this may be his only chance to talk to someone, share some thoughts and volley some ideas, in a long time. Consequently, Severus only shrugged his shoulders, took a deep breath and answered in a little slurred, but nonetheless sincere sounding voice.

"Petunia, I'll let you know that I think us both crazy for opening up to each other and confessing our darkest secrets because we're enemies. But I can promise you to keep mum about everything that I'll learn today. And if you know one thing about me, it is that I always keep my promises. Only look how well I kept my promise to always be nasty to you. I'll also promise you to state my honest opinion to your sorrows. So be warned of my sharp tongue. Although I thankfully don't have any bratty, needy siblings who would undoubtedly torture me with their annoying presence, know-it-all attitudes and constant attention-seeking I can relate to your feelings of being loathed, unwanted and hated by your supposed loved ones. Hell, my whole life story revolves around the emotions of not being loved, cared for and appreciated enough …", Severus stopped talking abruptly, took a deep gulp of his whiskey, that regrettably wasn't a burning Fire Whiskey, and continued in a shaky, grief-stricken voice,

" My violent bastard of a father has beaten my beloved, magical gifted mum into a pulp since the first day of my life that I can remember. He was afraid of her magical abilities, despised her for not being honest about her magical powers before their marriage and loathed her for bearing him a freaky, magically talented and ugly son. So he had stashed her wand, magical photos, and magical items into a bolted and barred trunk, isolated her from her family as well as the Magical world and broken her into submission. Consequently, he ended her unhappy life, her living hell on earth, by beating her to death in our kitchen. Luckily for me, some neighbor heard screams as well as loud punches coming out of our house for some time, before everything went deadly silent, with the result that he alarmed the Muggle authorities. Therefore Tobias got caught red-handed, arrested and now awaits his life imprisonment in some dirty prison cell. Luckily, I don't need to live in fear of being next.

"For - you must have guessed it by now - he hated me since the moment I displayed my first bust of accidental magic aged three months old by levitating my cuddly toy. Since then, my life has been filled with harsh words, mean mocking, brutal beatings and loathing looks. So, Petunia, I know everything about being unwanted and despised, my own "father" thrilled my worthlessness with his brutal fists into my mind. Consequently, I can wholeheartedly understand your sorrows," Severus ended the confession about his abusive home life in a clipped voice, daring Petunia with an imploring stare to pity him or act like she didn't know about the murder of his mum by the hands of Tobias Snape.

Petunia tried to ban any feeling of pity out of her eyes, swallowed once audibly and continued without any pretense, "I'm really sorry to hear about your abusive home life and the horrible fate of your mum, albeit I must confess, that I knew about her murder thanks to a local news article my mother mailed me and rumors about your abusive, drunken bastard of a father swirled around Cokeworth for years, so that this escalation sadly isn't a huge surprise to me. Nonetheless, I want to express my heartfelt sympathy to you because the tragic death of one's mum must really devastate someone. I can't pretend that I would know anything about it or offer you some smart words about how to proceed in your grieving process, because the only close person I ever lost, was my beloved maternal grandma Daisy when I was five. So I can't even remember my own feelings and actions clearly. Besides that, I wouldn't dream about giving you any advice on how to grieve in the right way anyway, because I don't think that there is only one way to grieve for everyone and it frankly isn't my business.

"But I take some solace in the fact that everyone has the chance to heal and move on from their sorrows eventually and that we' re able to relate to our stories due to our experiences. So, Severus, would you like to know everything about the favoriting of Lily over me? Please, refrain from answering this rhetorical question with a snarky remark, because the existence of this unfair treatment is a deep, open and pus-covered wound in my soul and I will anyway spill the beans about it", Petunia announced her midday confession in an insecure tone.

At this moment, Severus thought that liquor must really be a great life-changer because it let him see Petunia in a new light. And unexpectedly, he liked this new blunt, honest and vulnerable Petunia.


	7. Chapter 6 – Honesty is the key to healing!

Park near Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia really was flashed by Severus openness and honesty. She knew that he was a deeply private person and normally guarded his secrets close to his chest. So it was a huge signal of his trust and companionship to open up to her about his abusive home life. Although Petunia heard rumors about it in hushed talks between her mother and her gossiping housewife friends, she never really paid attention to it or investigated further into the matter of Severus' broken home, because she despised him and didn't care about his sorrows then. Ok, perhaps Petunia wasn't quite honest with herself here. She naturally cared about the new rumors that circulated in the rumor mill of Cokeworth, because she was a nosy person by nature, often listening to her parents' talks in the hope to hear them admit, that they loved her and were proud of her behind closed doors. A hope that was sadly never fulfilled. Or she listened closely to other people's hushed conversations in the hope to learn some useful, personal secrets that she could use to her advantage in the future. Petunia really had been a nasty, petty teenaged girl. Therefore, she had registered the gossip about the Snape's fully.

And it really wasn't a huge secret that Tobias Snape was a violent alcoholic who spent most his money and time in a pub beer-drinking, liquor-sipping, and football-watching and oftentimes lost his temper in some bar fights with other drunken brutes or insulted his wife. The good-for-nothing satanic bitch with her bewitching, amoral abilities. He also humiliated his son as the ugly, science-obsessed Nancy with useless, demonic skills in his drunken rants in front of his hysterically laughing and yelling friends. Besides that, everyone with a keen observation could see that he physically abused his wife and son, because they often spotted a black eye or several bruises on their faces and rough looking grazes on their arms and legs. Therefore, it was a well-known fact in Cokeworth that Tobias Snape was a jobless, alcoholic, sadistic and cruel bastard who verbally and physically abused his wife and son. Thanks to this fact, he was looked upon, regarded as trash and a disgrace for any hard-working industrial worker. Hence, nobody wanted to have to do anything with him and badmouthed him behind his back.

For in addition to his drinking problem, he was also addicted to compulsive gambling and cheated on his wife with some prostitutes, so that he spent the whole money that he hugely generated out of social Funds for unemployed mill workers on liquor, gambling, and whores. Mrs. Snape and their son Severus had only had very little money. Petunia estimated around 100 £ a month to cover their expenses. Thankfully, they didn't need to pay any rent for their run-down, small two-bedroom-house that looked more like a broken hovel anyway and could draw most of their food for free from the local food bank and most of their clothes for little money from the community welfare association, with the result that they didn't need to live on the streets or starve to death. But Mrs. Snape and Severus were very proud people that didn't want to be on welfare all the time. Hence, they oftentimes starved, ditched their personal hygienic products or wore extremely worn-out clothes to not have to visit the charity services very often.

As a result, they were both sickly thin, had blemished, yellow-looking skin, greasy raven black hair, and yellowish crooked teeth. Looks that earned them mocking stares and insults by neighbors, by-passers, and schoolmates. So, they were treated like outcasts in Cokeworth. This unfair treatment didn't only stem from their unkempt looks, but also from the odd things Severus could do. He e.g. had jinxed a serpent's tongue into the mouth of a nosy, his mum insulting neighbor at the age of four or had transfigured the toy car of a nasty classmate who had bullied him relentlessly into a spider at the age of seven. It circulated the gossip that he attended a school for mentally unbalanced and intellectually retarded children in Scotland.

So, supposedly every inhabitant of Cokeworth knew that the home life of the Snapes was a living hell. But only a few tried to help them by calling the police, informing child protective services or encouraging Mrs. Snape to seek help in a battered women's center out of fear to overstepping some borders, suffering under the wrath from Mr. Snape or simply not caring about other people's issues. Besides that, the intervention of strangers didn't change anything. The police had only been able to catch Mr. Snape once red-handed with the result that he only needed to spend one week in house-arrest. The investigation of the child protective services petered out due to the lack of solid evidence. Severus' refusal to talk to the authorities and Mr. Snape's deceitful behavior - he had played the role of the concerned, overprotective dad that sometimes needed to talk in louder tones with his maladjusted and intellectually retarded son in order to make him change his behavior and learn something new – and Mrs. Snape dismissal of any help from a women's rights organization didn't help his case.

A sole tear tripped down Petunia's right cheek as she realized in shock how close she was to become another Mrs. Snape. A woman that tolerated the verbal and physical abuse of her boyfriend silently and didn't seek any help. When she realized that Mrs. Snape had been beaten to death in the end by her abusive husband after a miserable life in solitude, violence, and poverty, Petunia lost all of her composure and broke down into loud sobs.

Severus, startled by her new, unexpected breakdown into miserable, hysterical sobs, because he actually awaited her to open up about her difficult relationship with Lily and only didn't disrupt her long silence with a sarcastic comment due to his misinterpretation of the situation – he actually thought, that she was pre-formulating her story in her mind and arraying her messy thoughts – took her in his arms and tried to comfort her with a joke.

"Hey, Petunia. There is no need for your tears. I know that my sight isn't anything pretty and can really upset you, but I never thought that you would be reduced to tears thanks to my ugly mug …". As he noticed with panic, that Petunia's sobs only seemed to get more frequent and she was near hyperventilation now, he stroked her back in rhythmically, soft and slow motions and spoke to her in a soothingly, low voice, "Petunia, try to calm yourself down. Everything is going to be alright again. You don't need to be ashamed of your emotions or tears and I promise you that I will try to not interrupt your talk and disrupt it with any sarcastic remarks. Although I can't guarantee that not one tiny little snark will escape my mouth. Though, they will be all directed at this violent oaf of a boyfriend, Victor, your unfair parents or even your self-absorbed sister. But, please, refrain from soaking my only halfway decent dark t-shirt with your tears, because these people aren't worth your tears."

Severus noticed relieved that Petunia's breathing had returned to a normal speed during his speech and her woes were now reduced into low, muted sobs that nevertheless rocked her whole slim body. So, he still rubbed her back affectionately and whispered little, barely audible encouragements into her ear. After several minutes, Petunia's sobs stilled down completely. She composed herself somewhat and looked at him with gratitude, amazement but also shock clearly visible in her icy blue, red and puffy by her tears eyes, squeezed his right hand and freed herself a little from his embrace to be able to look him in the eyes during her speech.

"Severus, I really must thank you again for your comforting hug and words. They really mean the world to me. And you might be right, that my parents, my boyfriend – whose name actually is Vernon – and Lily aren't worth my tears, but I didn't cry due to my disadvantaged treatment by my parents or my envy in regards to Lily's magical powers. I broke down for the tragic life story of your mum opened my eyes to a hurtful truth. I could end up being beaten to death by my violent, cheating and insensitive boyfriend after living a life of solitude, misery, and captivity. And this bitter truth wounded me deeply because I don't want to be another statistical figure in the records of murdered women …," Petunia's voice cracked at the end, she needed to interrupt her speech due to her bleak vision of her future, before she continued her talk with a desperate gaze in Severus' eyes, "Severus, please, answer my following questions honestly. Do you think that Vernon could potentially harm me badly in the future? And can you imagine that I could find happiness and love without Vernon? Although I don't think that I really loved him at any moment of our relationship?"

For the second time, Severus was astonished by Petunia's bluntness and honesty as well as her need for his advice. Sure, the mentioning of his beloved mum's dark fate at the hands of his brutish father rubbed salt into his still open, festering wound and evoked some strong feelings of guilt, regrets, and revenge in his heart. But he decided to throw them into the wind and help Petunia with some honest advice because he wanted to see her smiling again. Besides that, despite having been an anti-social, rude and nasty nemesis of Petunia's in her childhood and often being plagued by dark thoughts as well as feelings of being purely evil, Severus didn't wish the fate of his mum upon anyone, not even upon the formerly rude, arrogant and deceitful big sister of his dream girl. Especially not, since she allowed him due to her trust, openness, and honesty to see a new side of her today. The blunt, vulnerable, devastated or lost Petunia that searched for her happiness and way in life could relate to him and hoped to gain some valuable advice concerning her life choices from him.

So, Severus decided to repay her trust and honesty in equal means. By opening up to her and giving her some much-needed advice. Therefore, he answered her in a sincere tone, "Oh, Petunia. I'm truly saddened to hear this dark piece of your chain of thoughts because I don't wish the fate of my beloved mum upon my worst enemy. You asked me about my honest opinion regarding your boyfriend's potential to turn into an abusive murderer, so please don't condemn myself in the end for my following words. In my opinion, your boyfriend is the prototype of an abusive, pathetic control freak who only feels powerful and strong by insulting his girlfriend verbally, humiliating her in public and beating her behind closed doors. Naturally, I admittedly don't know enough about him and your relationship to give you a proficient analysis. But any man who belittles his girlfriend's looks to make her feel ugly, ogles other women in public to make her feel unwanted, tries to stop her studying in taxation to make her dependent upon himself and shoves her around in his room to make her feel helpless and intimidated has in my opinion the potential of becoming a crazed stalker or murderer. His fear of losing control over his victim or being excluded from her life forever could drive him over the edge and let him react in a violent, blind rage.

So, in my books, the risks to be harmed by Vernon are unhealthy high for you at the moment. To be frank with you, your devastated state and confessions about your abusive boyfriend reminded me at first so strongly of my mum, that I needed to take a deep breath to stop myself from breaking down into tears. If I'm being completely honest, your similar situations moved me to open up to you in the beginning. But I'm not only the bearer of bad news, because, from my point of view, you'll very likely find love and happiness with someone other than Vernon thanks to your admirable personality traits, unique sweet looks, and keen mind. Because I believe in the granted utterly romantic concept of soulmates that is hugely popular in the Wizarding world. If you only open your eyes in any directions and believe in it yourself, you'll find your Mr. Right. The person that supports you through thick and thin, understands you blindly, respects your wishes and accepts you for the person that you are without pretense. But before you can search for your Mr. Right, you need to face your issues head-on, free yourself from any emotional bargain, gain confidence in your abilities and start showing your true self to others, because you can only heal with absolute honesty and determination."

Severus ended his long talk with a subtle gaze into Petunia's eyes to identify her reaction, but Petunia only gazed befuddled into the space and seemed to be stuck in her thoughts.


	8. Chapter 7 – Facing some bitter truths hurts!

Park near Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia felt absolutely horrified and depressed because Severus voiced her greatest fears. That Vernon would break her spirit and body in the future, if she didn't leave him beforehand, because he loved to see her suffer, inflict her pain and reduce her into a silent, submissive and miserable woman. She couldn't help herself to be a better person in the future and seek her happiness, if she didn't leave him as soon as possible, for he only wanted to control her life, turn her into an isolated, unhappy and terrified housewife and destroy her anyway low self-confidence. She knew deep down in her bones that she would end up like Eileen, a broken, self-loathing woman beaten to death by her husband if she didn't leave him tomorrow and this morbid thought sent a shiver down her spine.

Petunia promised herself that she would act tomorrow, but gather her strength today and revel in the positive vision Severus envisioned for her future. She really felt like she was in an alternative universe because Severus listened to her sorrows patiently, stated his honest opinion and helpful advice without a snarky remark and comforted her with tight hugs and encouraging words. She really liked this empathetic, truthful and caring version of Severus and could gradually see why he had been Lily's best male friend for such a long time. He really seemed like an ideal choice for a best friend. A patient listener with a sound mind, good advice, and honest words who tried to comfort you at your lowest point in life and stayed loyal at your side. Petunia wished that she had not wasted her time in their childhood fighting with him, disregarding him as a wicked, awful and freaky boy and angering him with her verbal bullying, because they now seemed to have a lot in common and could have been kindred spirits while growing up.

Petunia couldn't understand, why Lily distanced herself completely from him and badmouthed him in front of their parents as an evil, dark wizard who had joined a violent, maniac gang hell-bent on ruling the Wizarding world by killing Muggles, Muggle-borns, Blood-traitors, Squibs, and Magical creatures when they asked her about their failed friendship. In Petunia's opinion, Lily clearly painted Severus in dark colors, like some crazy, determined killer that you should avoid with every means necessary because she wanted to wash her hands off of him without being labeled as the bad guy. Therefore, she needed to tell lies about him and demonize him as an evil, dark wizard who wanted to kill people like her family due to his belief in blood-purity and the supremacy of pure-blooded wizards and witches to stop their parents nagging and kill any feelings of sympathy they might have towards Severus.

In Petunia's books, Severus couldn't be this stereotyped, dark wizard for real, because he surely wouldn't try to comfort her, a devastated, unhappy young Muggle woman, if he was hell-bent on killing every Muggle. And he also wouldn't encourage her to leave Vernon, if he wanted to see all Muggles suffer or pay her any compliments and instill hopes for a happy future with her Mr. Right in her heart if he thought himself superior to her and only regarded people like her as human trash. Besides that, no evil person would comfort their childhood nemesis and listen to her sorrows, because you needed the heart to qualify as a good comforter and great hugger. And despite the fact that Severus behavior might be fueled by his Whiskey consumption, Petunia believed in the old saying "Drunk talk is real talk", so that she knew for sure that this vulnerable, honest, empathetic and comfort-sharing Severus was his true self.

So, whatever lies Lily wanted to broadcast about him, Petunia didn't fell for them. Especially, since she knew all about Lily's oftentimes hurtful lies, mean behavior, and tendencies to overdramatize everything to gain the attention of her environment and depict herself as a victim. For how could a young man who believed in the concept of soulmates, suffered under the verbal and physical abuse of his father, lost his beloved mum to his savage beatings and transferred hope to Petunia ever join a heartless, violent band of maniacs? It didn't make any sense. Therefore, Petunia decided to judge Severus due to his actions, words, and thoughts, instead of the unverified and horrific gossip from her sister.

Shaking off her deep thoughts, Petunia noticed with a little blush, that Severus was gazing intensively at her. Very likely to decipher her reactions to his advice. Perhaps, he even thought that she felt offended by his bluntness or would laugh about his romantic love concept. Because let's face it, Severus really didn't seem like the guy who believed in the undying love between two people that somehow fate magically preordained. To dispel his likable doubts, fears or insecurities about her reaction, Petunia looked into his onyx black eyes, squeezed his hand in gratitude and addressed him in a raspy voice.

"I really appreciate your honesty, Severus. Even if it sends a chill down my spine to know that I've come dangerously close to end up in an abusive, miserable marriage like your mum, I really thank you for pointing some hurtful truths out to me. Sometimes you need to see your life from the perspective of another to start changing it for the better. Albeit I always knew that Vernon wasn't good for me, that he kept dragging me down, degrading my looks, encouraging me to end my studies in taxation and pressuring me to have sex with him – something I thankfully refused, because I want to share this special moment with my future husband – or pulling my arm with a firm, bruises-leaving grip, I tried to convince myself that he would change, start loving me and treating me better.

"These delusions probably stem from my low self-confidence as well as from my fears of being forever unwanted, unloved and undesirable. But I promise you that I'll break it off with this violent control freak in the morning and start working on my self-confidence issues. I realized through your speech that I must first learn to love myself, be proud of my achievements and be comfortable in my own skin if I want to find love, happiness, and satisfaction. For only if I can freely be myself, I can start looking for my soulmate.

"And, Severus, rest assured, that I won't laugh about your romantic love concept of soulmates. Although I must admit that I would have never picked you, Mr. Grumpy, for a romantic and I'm not entirely convinced yet, that you didn't only choose it to lighten my mood and instill some hope in my heart. Nonetheless, I find it kind of cute and adorable as well as a positive outlook on your love life. Sure, it could also pressure you to start searching for your soulmate as soon as possible or question your compatibility with your current beloved, but in my books, it also reassures you that you will find your Mr. Right eventually so that you won't have to be lonely, unhappy and unloved forever. It really helps you to reflect some things logically, reduces the pressure you might have put yourself in to find your Mr. Right and raises your hope for a perfect relationship in the future.

"So, I really am quite a fan of this whole romantic "one true love" topic and glad that you think, that I will find my Mr. Right in the future. And for your information, I'm quite sure, that you will also find your one true love …," Petunia interrupted her talk because she had registered Severus dubious face expression, his raised eyebrow, and his clearly audible scoff. To reassure him of the sincerity of her words, Petunia explained her thought process to him. "Don't give me this incredulous look, Severus. You must know by now that I'm absolutely sincere and honest. I really believe, that your one true love is out there searching for you and that you will eventually meet her. I know that you won't believe me because you're currently trapped in the misconception that Lily is your soulmate and now that she is engaged to this arrogant, self-absorbed airhead James Potter your life will be a dark, unhappy and miserable ride without her. But this isn't the case.

"I can imagine that you will probably not listen to me or throw my next words back into my face because your unrequited love for Lily is naturally a hurtful topic for you. But Lily isn't good enough for you and if you could look at your relationship from a neutral, logical perspective, you would realize that a romance between you would be doomed in the end ..", Petunia stopped her talk here to gather his reaction. By seeing his crossed arms, highly raised eyebrows and tightly pinched lips, Petunia knew that he was upset by her words. But she had promised to always be honest with him. So she risked incurring his wrath with the intention to open his eyes to some hurtful truths.

"Severus, please don't look at me like that. I can imagine that you don't want to listen to one word right now. But as you said earlier, one needs to face oneself's issues to be able to move on and heal. So, it would do you some good, to listen to my explanations. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to ridicule you for your feelings for Lily or make fun of them. But your relationship with my perfect sister was always a toxic one in my opinion. Sure, you had a close friendship that was based on your mutual trust, magical powers and ambitions to make yourselves known in the Wizarding world, but Lily washed her hands off of you with no sweat. I don't really know what happened between you two. Lily told our parents that you insulted her due to her blood status in public and joined a dark gang, but I can imagine that Lily wasn't the innocent victim she claims to be.

"Although we don't talk very much anymore - actually, I can't even recall the last time we talked honestly and without fake smiles to another – I know her like the back of my hand, so that I can judge her for her actions, know all about her character strengths as well as flaws and can decipher her mood. And after your fall-out two years ago, she may have been sad, shed some tears or refused to open up about this lake incident to anyone. But to me, it seemed more like a playbook response of how to react to a broken friendship, not something that stemmed from her heart. I know that I'm super harsh with Lily and maybe paint her in a darker light than her character testifies, but you must admit that she took advantage of your loneliness, longing for friendship as well as affection and your willingness to do everything for her more often than once, because your friendship wasn't primary a friendship between two equals, but an unbalanced, doomed relationship between one giver (you) and one taker (Lily).

For Lily used your knowledge about the Wizarding world, in Potions or Defense against the Dark Arts and the Wizarding culture to get a head start on her classmates – especially Muggle-borns – in Hogwarts, come to terms with her magical powers and her identity as a witch and receive praise from our parents for her unique, wonderful tricks. But she never gave you anything in return. She didn't listen to your sorrows, didn't ask about your home life – although she had heard the circulating rumors about your abusive dad – and didn't invite you to our home so that you could watch TV or play some board games. In my opinion, the sad truth in regards to your friendship is that she used you as her personal encyclopedia about the Wizarding world and living comment box most of the time …".

Petunia interrupted her speech abruptly, as she noticed Severus blazing eyes, furious facial expression, and his frantically, heavy breathing. It seemed like, she really did go too far with the characterization of their friendship as a dependent, toxic relationship this time. She only hoped that Severus would calm down again and swallow this hurtful truth with as much decorum as possible because she really wanted to continue their heartfelt conversation.


	9. Chapter 8 – Lilies aren't always angels!

Park near Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Severus couldn't control his anger anymore. Really, who does Petunia think she is, to tear apart his close friendship with Lily as some based on misinterpretations, false hopes and deceit one-way road. Sure, a little voice inside his head taunted him by replaying words of his fights with Lily or throwing insults in her voice at his face: But Severus tried to turn them out and focus his wrath on Petunia because he couldn't write his bond to Lily off as a lovely illusion. It hurt too much. So, he breathed heavily, turned his face into an ugly, angry grimace, glared at Petunia and lashed out in an angry voice.

"Petunia, I urge you to stop your talk right now, because all that's coming out of your mouth are blatant lies. Lily was a true friend to me – my only friend, if I'm being honest – who showed me kindness, showered me with affection and comforted me on bad days. You frankly don't know anything about our friendship. So please stop to drag it through the mire. I know that you are jealous of Lily, envy her for her good looks, easy-going nature and magical powers. But this is no excuse to badmouth her in front of me. She didn't use me as her key to the Magical world, period."

Severus had moved dangerously close into Petunia's private space so that he was now nose to nose with her, his breath grazing her cheeks, his blazing obsidian eyes locked with her icy-blues and his last shouted statement ringing in her ears. It seemed to Petunia as if he wanted to shut her up with his intimidating presence. But Petunia kept a straight face, took a deep breath and answered him in a calm voice.

"Severus, I can imagine that my words hurt you deeply because you idolize Lily and love her endlessly. She couldn't possibly do anything wrong in your eyes. But stop trying to hurt me with some petty jibes at my looks and lack of magical abilities or intimidate me with your aggressive behavior. I won't back down and stop talking because I know that it is a desperate attempt on your part to close your eyes tightly on some hurtful truths. And I get you. Actually, I'm a real master in releasing my fears, emotional pain and doubts by lashing out at others. So you can't chase me away with your childish behavior. Face the truth, as you urged me to do in my abusive relationship with Vernon. Lily used you.

"Ok, I will agree with you that she might have actually cared for you as her best friend at one point. For she was always happy after returning from your meetings at the park or gushed about your intelligence, good heart or funny nature despite your outward miserable aura of a grumpy, sarcastic and rude boy to my parents. But she never defended you against any bad rumors after your falling out two years ago and she never invited you to celebrate Christmas with us or go on vacation despite my parents' offer. And since she dates this awful, arrogant snot James Potter she often badmouths you like a dark, evil and dangerous wizard and jokes with Potter and his gang about their bullying of you at Hogwarts. So, she really isn't the perfect, kind-hearted angel you make her out to be."

Severus was flabbergasted by Petunia's audacity to not flinch away from him and continue her unflattering character study of Lily. He wanted to turn around and leave her to her rant because he couldn't bear her demonization of Lily. But he didn't want to act like a coward or petulant child. So he stayed, took a huge gulp out of his Whiskey bottle and thought about his next actions. He would tear her lies and schemes apart after she had finished her rant because she wouldn't listen to him now anyway. She seemed to be determined to show him the true colors of Lily and voice her side of the story. Consequently, Severus managed to cool his emotions down, clear his mind and decided to listen with rapt attention to her observations, for he always kept his promises. And he had promised Petunia at the beginning of their heart-to-heart talk that he would listen to her sorrows, try to understand her reasoning and give her some advice without lashing out at her or taunting her negative feelings towards Lily.

Besides that, Severus really wasn't that surprised by Petunia's judgment, because he knew that her envy and jealousy towards Lily clouded her mind. Therefore, he needed to comprehend her chain of thoughts to be able to make her see reason in the end. So, he decided to observe her closely, listen to her rant without interruptions and collapse her chart house of lies next. Before he encouraged her to continue with her talk, he addressed her in a seeming peace offering.

"Petunia, I'm impressed by your audacity to anger me further. But I'll listen to your analysis of my failed friendship with Lily anyway because I promised you to hear you out and treat you with respect during our talk. So please accept my apology for my unfair insults and threats towards you. They slipped out of my mouth in an emotional moment of anger, hurt and embarrassment. I wanted to lash out at you and hurt you emotionally because your words hit a sore spot in my heart. Stay assured, I know that Lily isn't always a good-hearted angel that accepts every person for who he/she truly is or acts according to values like tolerance, empathy, and honesty. But she also isn't the deceitful, superficial devil you make her out to be. Please continue your rant about our faked friendship because I want to hear your side of the story." With these words, Severus backed slightly down into his previous seated position in front of the rocking horse and waited impatiently for Petunia's rant.

Petunia, surprised by his apology and cooled down emotions, only blinked once, before she resumed her train of thoughts. "Oh, Severus. I will naturally accept your apology because I knew that you lashed out at me to vent your wrath, anger, and frustrations. Believe me, I know these feelings and won't hold your words against you. Besides that, you know that your description of me as an envious, hurt bigger sister is dead on. But more about my envy of her magical powers later, because her behavior towards you hasn't anything to do with it.

"Since Lily met you in this park all those years ago, learned about her identity as a witch and the existence of the Magical world, she changed dramatically. Sure, I understood her wish to know everything about magic and spend as much time as possible with her new magical friend, but I wasn't okay with her elusiveness and antisocial behavior towards me. She basically washed her hands off of me without an apologetic look or an honest explanation. Every time I wanted to play hide and seek with her or jump rope, she excused herself due to some new charms she needed to learn or magical tales she needed to hear. I really felt hurt by her excluding behavior, cast aside like trash and began to despise you and your magical world of adventures and wonders.

"I longed to experience the same adventures of my own and be special like Lily because she had always been treated like the special child by our parents, while they overlooked all of my achievements. I guess that their preference of Lily arose partly from her being a premature baby that fought for her life in an incubator for a week and needed special care ever since. Adding to this her unusual abilities as a childlike levitating her toys, changing her hair color or making flowers grow that concerned our parents highly and alienated Lily from our neighboorhood kids, they always tried to reassure her that she was special, beautiful, talented and loved. Your revelation that she was a witch shocked our parents on the one hand because they couldn't fathom the realness of magic and the workings of the Magical world. On the other hand, they were relieved because they now knew why Lily was so different and they even adored her more for it.

"I understand, that Lily isn't responsible for her preferenced treatment by my parents. But the fact that she could cast me away, her older sister, who had taught her how to ride a bike or draw a house, so easily, hurt me to the core. I know that I should have probably voiced my hurt feelings and asked her to start acting like a sister again, but I feared to be looked upon as the older, envious sister without any friends who can't handle being lonely. So, I stayed quiet, loathed every spell, potion or magical tale she learned and showed to my parents because in my jealousy riddled mind it seemed like she wanted to taunt and exclude me again with her magical adventures. Consequently, I bottled every hurt and resentment up in myself and lashed out at her with insults about her freaky nature when my emotions started to overwhelm me.

"I disclose my history with Lily to you, because it is similar to your friendship with Lily. At first, she treated you with kindness, compassion, and honesty. Laughed with you about silly jokes, learned about new spells, potions and magical stories with you and comforted you when you were sad. She acted like a true loyal friend that you could trust unconditionally. But one of Lily's character flaws is that she is greatly influenced by the opinions of others and tries to fulfill the societal expectations. Besides that, she always dreamed of living a life without financial worries, malevolent rumors, and taxing fights. So, as soon as she noticed that her friends badmouthed you, the Marauders bullied you for being different and a Slytherin and everyone in Hogwarts accused you of being a dark, evil wizard thanks to your studies in the Dark Arts, Lily distanced herself from you.

"When you supposedly proofed your enemies words by insulting her for her blood status, she washed herself off of you. You had fulfilled your purpose. Introducing her to the Magical world, teaching her things about magical subjects and culture, encouraging her to believe in her magical abilities, so that she didn't have any use for you anymore. Due to your fascination with the Dark Arts, your Hogwarts House, your impoverished background, and your anti-social, sarcastic character you didn't fit in her group of magical talented, easy-going and popular friends anymore. Consequently, she tossed you away like trash and badmouths you to everyone to defend her actions. So, you see, that Lily is far away from being modern Mother Teresa, but a self-absorbed, superficial young woman instead. Therefore, you should really knock her off her pedestal."

Petunia ended her rant about Lily with a clipped tone, a brave look in Severus' eyes and a queasy feeling in her stomach. She really hoped that Severus wouldn't leave the park immediately, venting his frustrations and hurt feelings at her and never talking to her again. Perhaps, she should have kept her mouth shut and never tried to change Severus delusional, angel-like image of Lily.


	10. Chapter 9 – Collapsing chart houses of lies!

Park near Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Severus tried with all his might to stay calm, to not lose his cool and lash out at Petunia in a violent, unforgivable, their fragile friendship destroying rant. But her demonization of Lily really was difficult to endure with a stony face because he loved Lily despite her engagement to James and would defend her against any unfair attacks. And Petunia's jibes at her character and their friendship really were mostly lies. Therefore, he wanted to collapse her chart house of lies with his side of the story in an explosive, snarky reply. But he had promised Petunia to never judge her unfairly and always try to understand her reasoning. Besides that, he really didn't want to lose their new friendship and companionship, because he didn't have anyone to talk to besides her and it seemed like she could understand his feelings of feeling unwanted, alone and rejected. So, Severus developed a plan inside his head to make her see Lily in a more positive light without driving her away. He just needed to up his game to change her opinion about Lily.

Hence, Severus awaited calmly the end of Petunia's rant, put a sneer on his face and commented in a sarcastic tone, "Wow, Petunia. I always knew that you cast a shadow on Lily thanks to your envy of her magical powers and her preferential treatment by your parents. But I could never quite imagine that she is a wolf in sheep's clothes to you. Because in the end, one fact still remains. She is your baby sister. Someone you should care deeply about and try to protect. Not someone you should badmouth in front of her former best friend. I can imagine that always being in her shadow must have been hard for you and it wasn't right of your parents to treat you so differently. But sometimes life isn't fair and deals you an unfortunate fate. To escape this fate, you must try to shine in your own way or find anything that makes you feel happy and love yourself.

"Believe me, I haven't found this special something and have long lost hope in achieving anything worthwhile in this life because nobody wants to have to do anything with me. And my dreams of becoming a famous Potions researcher are impossible for me to reach without any connections in the Potions industry or money to think of. And although my marks in Potions have been exceptional, I won't get a scholarship for a Potions Mastery without the support of at least one potioneer or exuding the aura of some intellectual, socially competent and ethical acting goody-two-shoes. As I don't have the support of Professor Slughorn or more likely exude the aura of some snarky, antisocial and morally questionable git, my dreams of becoming a Potions researchers are shattered to the ground. But enough of my wallowing in self-pity. I originally wanted to point something out to you.

"If your environment – Lily, your parents, your college mates – doesn't appreciate you, start to find out who you are and who you want to be. Because in my opinion, nothing makes your family prouder than you being happy and living your life. Sure, I could abstract from your confession that you tried some things to gain the favor of your parents and nothing worked out from your point of view Perhaps your parents don't even realize how unfairly treated and unloved you feel. I'm sure that they love you as much as Lily and appreciate your achievements like studying taxation at the renowned University of Warwick, but they don't express their feelings as open or often as they should.

"Most likely, they think that you don't need their support or praise as much as Lily. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to excuse their behavior towards you, I only want you to see some things out of their perspective. Like me, you radiate an aura of an independent, snarky and emotionally composed person that doesn't need to hear the words "I love you" everyday or needs to be sheltered from some horrible truths. Perhaps, your parents see you as this grown-up person and don't express their feelings towards you as they should. I'm sure if you wouldn't bottle everything up into yourself and talk with them freely about your feelings of being neglected and unloved, they would change their behavior and reassure you about their love. So, in my opinion, it really is only a huge miscommunication case on both sides.

"Very likely, they also aren't happy about the frosty relationship between you and Lily. Think about it like that. If you had two little girls as children, you would want them to be the best friends, trusting and loving each other unconditionally. Not two stubborn idiots who fight and badmouth each other all the time. So, in my books, an improved relationship with Lily would also help your case with your parents. And really, Petunia. See reason, Lily isn't the bad person you make her out to be." Severus added his speech with a compassionate look into her eyes, that tried to express his understanding of her situation, but also should urge her to overthink some of her attitudes towards Lily, because Severus really couldn't stand her hostility towards his former best friend.

Petunia was stunned by Severus words because she really had expected him to lash out at her. But alas, he tried to understand her, urged her to be the better person and opened her eyes to some other perspectives. Petunia appreciated this and tried to overthink some situations in her past. Perhaps, her parents really weren't aware that Petunia felt like the unloved, not so brilliant daughter. Storing this new revelation in the back of her mind, Petunia couldn't back down from her negative image of Lily. She really wanted Severus to see her as a human with flaws and weaknesses because his image of her wasn't healthy at all. It only caused him to see her as an idealized, god-like illusion that would shape his view of other women and always keep him trapped in his love for her. Therefore, Petunia breathed deeply and focussed on getting through to him.

"You're right, Severus. Lily isn't all bad and my parents might actually be not aware of my hurt feelings. But although the might hurt me unintentionally, they still hurt me and should be more perceptive towards me. I'll talk to them in the following days about my feelings because I now get it. Bottling up everything and wallowing in your self-pity doesn't do you any good. It really only intensifies your dark thoughts and hurt feelings. Opening up is the key to heal and change situations.

"Albeit I understand your reasoning, I must disagree with your assessment of your future. I don't know how things work in the Magical world. But if you are a talented, genius Potions brewer, you will undoubtedly get your scholarship, because talent counts the most. So don't bury your head in the sand. Start searching actively for a scholarship or an apprenticeship and you most likely will get it. You only have to believe in yourself and see a future for you as a Potioner. Like I see my future in studying taxation and working as a tax accountant so that I do everything possible to achieve this, you need to work as hard towards your goal of being renown in the Potions industry. And you can only accomplish this if you start acting self-confident, think positive and believe in your chance.

"But your self-confidence issues and bleak future perspective isn't our contentious point right now. Our hot-button issue right now is Lily because we see her in two totally different lights. Whereas you see her as a kindhearted, magically talented lovely young woman with a solid moral compass, I see her as a superficial, seeking her own advantage human without any values like loyalty or empathy. I guess that our images of Lily are both shaped by our own feelings towards her and neither is totally correct, perhaps we should split the difference because neither of our images is healthy. So, Severus, what do you say? Are you ready to see Lily in a darker light?"

Severus was pleased that Petunia had started to overthink her behavior towards her parents and Lily. He also was stunned about her insistence, that he could achieve his dreams in the Magical world if he only started to believe in himself. Therefore, Severus only laughed shortly and answered Petunia's nagging in an amused sounding tone.

"Petunia, I don't know what false impression you do have about my image of Lily. Sure, I'm in love with her albeit her engagement to this arrogant bully Potter and admire her for her magical talent and her fiery character. But I don't worship her like an infallible goddess. I realize that she oftentimes acts superficial, without thinking her actions through and too concerned with the expectations of her environment. But she still is a kindhearted, nice and empathetic person at the core of her heart. Don't get me wrong. I know that she always dreamed of a life without any financial woes, mean gossip and insecurities and marrying Potter will secure these for her. I'm totally pissed at her for betraying our friendship by loving Potter the boy who made my life in Hogwarts a living hell and hates me for my very existence. I know that best friends wouldn't betray each other's trust like this, despite any hurt feelings and misconceptions they might have. And I resent Lily's shallowness as well as her taking the easy way out of a difficult situation and cutting all ties to me over one insult.

"But I still love her for being my only friend while growing up, listening to my sorrows, sharing her dreams with me and standing up to my bullies for a time. Because this is what she did until two years ago. She talked to me in our free time in Hogwarts, met me for silly playing dates, tried to improve my mood with jokes or defended me against the namecalling and bullying of the Marauders despite our growing distance. I know that we both made mistakes in our friendship. I wish I could turn back time and take some words back or have a chance to be her friend again because I accepted deep down in the back of my mind that she will never see me as boyfriend material.

"As painful as this truth is, I still have to live with it and possibly never experience true love in my life because I can't think of any woman I could ever love as deeply as Lily. Sure, I'm still young and don't know where my life will take me. Besides that, I realize that my unrequited love for Lily isn't true love and not a healthy emotion because true love evolves its strength due to being a mutual, happy experience and my obsession with Lily closes my heart for potential new loves. But I can't change my feelings. So, Petunia, you see that I don't see Lily as this flawless, beautiful goddess? I know everything about her flaws but still love her nonetheless. Can you also say from the bottom of your heart, that you hate Lily? Or is your envy and pain clouding your mind?"

Petunia was shocked by Severus' image of Lily. She really thought that his love blinded him to any flaws of her character. But it didn't seem to be the case. He loved her despite her flaws and betrayal. Petunia reflected Severus words for some minutes and answered him honestly.

"Severus, I didn't know that you were aware of Lily's flaws because I believed in the saying "Love makes blind". And I still think that you idealize Lily in some way because you recall her behavior towards you in a reality-deceiving light. But you are on to something here. You are right, that I still love Lily in a hidden place in my heart because she is my baby sister and I miss our childhood closeness terribly. Sure, I'm overly critical of her behavior and character because I envy her for her easy-going nature, flawless beauty and popularity. But nonetheless, she has some terrible flaws like tendencies to betrayal close friends, cast aspersions on humans to support her case and act superficially. I promise you despite these facts, that I'll try to establish a friendly relationship between us again and open up to her about my feelings. But you have to promise me in return that you won't close off your heart to love thanks to Lily's rejection because it isn't healthy and only makes you miserable. Do we have a deal?"

Petunia looked at Severus imploringly with huge, sapphire-blue puppy eyes.


	11. Chapter 10 – Deals inspire magic!

Park near Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

A little smirk graced Severus' face. He couldn't believe that his tactics had worked. Petunia didn't see Lily only in a dark light anymore. She had overthought some of her prejudiced character observations and even promised to establish a sisterly bond with Lily again. All he had to do in return was to state that he won't give up hope to find true love in his life. Sometimes he really was a genius, because he could pretend to keep looking for true love without Petunia even noticing that he was lying and at the same time reunite Lily with her long-lost, hostile sister. Sure, this wouldn't be fair towards Petunia, because she had opened up to him, believed in his sincerity and future achievements and offered him a friendship based on trust, mutual understanding, and honesty. And Severus knew that trying to repair her sisterly relationship with Lily really must tax Petunia because she suffers under an inferiority complex and she is a prideful young woman, who doesn't easily acknowledge her mistakes and show her vulnerability to her little sister.

Hence, Severus would really betray Petunia's trust and add another hurt to her already shattered heart, if he would lie to her. Although Severus really didn't believe that true love was something for him, because, let's face it, nobody ever loved him for who he was and surely nobody would ever be in love with him, the greasy, unattractive, impoverished, sarcastic and cruel Potions genius. Severus really believed in soul mates and soul bounds, but he didn't believe that there was any soul mate out there for him. For, how split and miserable must this soul mate be, to complete him? Trapped in his unrequited love and obsession with Lily, Severus couldn't imagine to ever be more attracted to or in love with another woman. And if a miracle happened and he would fall in love with someone, this woman would most likely only laugh about his feelings, mock him for them and reject him as Lily did. Therefore, Severus couldn't quite well be optimistic about any existing love life in his future. He really didn't believe in his chances of ever finding love again and his love for Lily blinded him additionally.

So, on the one hand, he wanted to spurn Petunia's deal due to his hopelessness to ever find love. On the other hand, he wanted to cut her deal because he wanted her to be happier with her life and a repaired sisterly bond with Lily would truly achieve this. Hence, he decided to open his eyes to love again and keep looking for any woman who caught his interest. Sure, he would have to overcome his obsession with Lily to open up his heart to a new woman. A deed that would undoubtedly cost him a lot of time and sorrows. But he would risk processing his unrequited, obsessed love to Lily because it already made him miserable and dangerously close to throwing his life away. Most likely, his life couldn't get any darker or depressed than it was at the moment. So, he really hadn't anything to lose.

Well, except his positive memories of his friendship with Lily and some blissfully happy dreams and daydreams. Perhaps, Petunia could help him to be more optimistic and positive about his future because she did believe in him and had already achieved to gain a scholarship at the University of Warwick. Sure, Petunia wasn't the most outgoing or optimistic young woman herself, but she believed in him and his chances of finding love and going into Potions research. Touched by her support, Severus vowed to always believe in her too and encourage her to live her dreams and be her true self because he really liked this blunt, honest and vulnerable Petunia.

Thence, after a few minutes of contemplating her deal, Severus turned his focus on Petunia, looked her deeply into her sapphire blue eyes, hold his hand out to her and replied to her with a smug smile on his face, "We have a deal. I will not bury all my hopes of finding true love and keep my eyes open for any woman that might enchant me. In return, you will begin to repair your broken sisterly relationship with Lily. But I have a little adjustment to make: Petunia, you must also promise me, to not stop looking for love and leave your abusive, cruel bastard of a boyfriend because he destroys you and you deserve to be loved, desired and protected. Thence, call it quits with this dumb, controlling oaf and believe in your chance to find love because I can undoubtedly guarantee you that there is a Prince Charming out there for you. So, can you promise me, to kick Victor's ass?", Severus inquired in a fierce sounding voice.

Petunia, who couldn't fathom that Severus would work on giving up his obsession with Lily, smiled at him in amusement. She had promised herself before offering this deal to break it off with Vernon in the morning and start on working to establish a friendly relationship with Lily. Sure, these schemes would require lots of courage, honesty and character strength from her, but Petunia was finally ready to start living her life based on her wishes and no longer let old grudges or insecurities control her life. She felt revitalized, strong and liberated due to her heart-to-heart talk with Severus and would tackle any obstacle in her new way of life. Well, it really seemed like this day was her lucky day. Finally, Vernon's abuse and flirting with other buxom women brought her to her senses. She deserved better than this, although it was really insane that Severus Snape, her childhood nemesis turned friend, opened her eyes to this. It was also quite amusing, that he couldn't get Vernon's name right. Victor. Hey, it was still an improvement to Vernon in her opinion. Letting out a low chuckle, Petunia gave Severus a real smile – something, she hadn't managed in quite some time – and nudged him playfully with her elbow.

"Wow, Severus. I would never have picked you for someone who would curse so violently in front of a young lady", Petunia replied with a little, deep laugh, "But I guess that a creepy brute and leech like my ex-boyfriend doesn't deserve any better. By the way, his name is Vernon, not Victor and I must say that the moniker Victor is too beautiful for such a vile person anyway. I promise you to break it off with him in the morning. And if he tries something funny like coercing me to stay in this abusive hell of a relationship or mocking me for my decision, I will show him that I'm not the silent, submissive victim anymore. I'm a survivor and I will fight him by all means necessary. So, we have a deal," Petunia took Severus extended hand, gave it a firm shake and looked with happiness radiating icy blue eyes in his obsidian blacks.

Severus returned her handshake with equal enthusiasm, his eyes gleaming with amusement and his heart skipping a beat. For a long time once again, he felt useful, liberated and happy. He had helped another human to see reason, change her life for the better and positively look ahead. He felt proud of himself and meaningful. A new feeling for him, because until now he only ever caused pain, destruction, and despair in the life of other humans. Perhaps, he had still a chance to do some good things in his life and needn't join the Death Eaters to feel powerful and accepted. But he wouldn't think about his Slytherin acquaintances and their plans for his future now. Now was a time for feeling carefree and celebrating his deal as well as new found friendship with Petunia.

As he studied Petunia's beaming face, he noticed for the first time how beautiful she really was. Sure, she wasn't the kind of fashion model stunning, but with her sparkling sapphire blue eyes, her rosy cheeks and luscious pink lips, her long honey blond hair and her oval, graced with clean-cut features face she could only be described as a beautiful rough diamond. But her most stunning feature wasn't her eyes, but rather her beautiful, gleaming white teeth baring beaming smile and her natural, clear infectious laugh. Severus realized, that he know was openly staring at Petunia, blushed a little and hoped that she hadn't noticed anything. Merlin, how could he be so obvious and stupid? He shouldn't check her out like some leecher because she was his new friend and he couldn't really be that dumb to fall for another girl that treated him with kindness, understanding and believed in him.

How pathetic would he be, if he fell in love with Petunia – Lily's bigger Muggle sister, his childhood nemesis? Sure, Petunia was a beautiful, intelligent and empathetic young woman who could relate to him and believed in his goodness. Therefore, she would be an ideal girlfriend. But he couldn't be seriously considering her as his true love after one honest talk and some encouraging words. What was wrong with him, that he felt romantic vibes towards every girl that was kind to him? He didn't want to overanalyze everything but somewhere in his mind or heart had to be a huge defect. Most likely, his hormones were in overdrive like by any ordinary male teen and he only needed to control them, to stop his insane thoughts and the uneasy feeling inside his stomach. Therefore, he cooled his emotions off, focused his thoughts on being a good friend to Petunia and banished any strange thoughts out of his mind. Thank Merlin, that Petunia wasn't able to read his thoughts because they would undoubtedly scare her to death. Trying to distract Petunia from his long silence, Severus squeezed her hand lightly and answered her in his sincere sounding, deep baritone.

"Petunia, I'm glad that you finally woke up and are going to pull the plug on your abusive, toxic romance with that controlling walrus Vernon – what a fitting name for such a despicable loser. And you know me. I'm a simple, blunt kid from a working-class family and if I hadn't learned how to curse in this hellish home of mine, I wouldn't have survived anything. Abusive language and mortifications were the special power of Tobias. So, please, forgive me my bad language, but I can't think of any nice words regarding your disgusting ex-boyfriend. Therefore, I will use some creative swearwords to badmouth him. But, Petunia, don't let us waste any valuable time on this creature. Rather answer some of my questions: Why do you envy Lily so much for her magical powers? Only because you think that your parents would love you more if you had magical powers? Or are you truly fascinated by the Magical world? If you are intrigued by it, what fascinates you the most? And have you ever thought about the fact that you can go on magical adventures without being able to perform magic?"

Petunia was flabbergasted by Severus' new Q & A session. Her lack of magical powers was a sore spot in her life and she really didn't like to talk about it. But Severus honest questions intrigued her and she wanted to know, what he meant as he said she could experience adventures in the Magical world without having magic powers. Hence, Petunia decided to answer his questions honestly.


	12. Chapter 11 – The wonders of magic, Part I!

Park near Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia bit nervously on her lip, anxiously bobbing up and down with her right foot and brushing some lose strand of her honey-blond curls behind her left ear. Talking about her attitude towards magic and the Magical world really made her anxious because it would enable Severus to see her vulnerable, insecure soul. But Petunia didn't want to hedge this uncomfortable topic because she trusted Severus and he had already seen her at her worst. Besides that, she really wanted to know more about the magical adventures he kept referring to. Lily never included Petunia in her talks about the Magical world or took her on a trip to Diagon Alley. Sure, it was partly her own fault that Lily never invited her to a shopping tour to Diagon Alley or told her some magical tales. Because due to her bitterness, envy, and despair of not possessing magical powers and never visiting Hogwarts as a student, Petunia had acted enraged and spiteful by her magical stories and newly learned charms, spells or curses, named Lily a freak and pretended to hate everything magical at first.

Therefore, Lily never approached her to talk about the goings-on in the Wizarding world and never introduced her to the wonders of the Magical world. Petunia realized that Lily would have most likely shared her new experiences with her and explained the idiosyncrasies of the magical culture to her years ago if she hadn't shut her out of her life completely. But she couldn't turn back time, so she would gladly sponge up any pieces of information from Severus and get her issues with magic off her chest because they really burdened her and turned her into a bitter, jealous fury. Hence, Petunia gathered all her courage, sorted out her milling around thoughts and started to answer Severus questions.

"Well, as you must know, magic is a difficult topic for me, because I already confessed to being jealous of Lily's magical powers. I'm also aware that you know about the pathetic letter I wrote to Prof. Dumbledore, asking him about accepting me to Hogwarts without magical abilities. I was furious when I learned that Lily and you intercepted it and mocked me for my naivety and stupidity. It really hurt me to the core because I always wanted to be special and experience many adventures in my life. Sure, partly this desire derived from my feelings of being neglected by our parents and only being plain, ordinary Petunia while Lily was the shining light of everyone's life. Therefore, I mistakenly believed, that only her magical abilities made everybody love her more and me possessing some would make our parents love me and guarantee a happy, popular and adventuresome life for me.

"What I didn't realize then was that Lily's magical powers indeed captured our parents' attention. But they admired her for more things than that. So, I doubt that me turning out to be a witch would catch their attention more. Nevertheless, I also desired to be magical because magic promises a whole new world of wonders and adventures. You can change your appearance by the whim of your wand, transfigure a stylish outfit or travel by the means of spinning around in thin air. Besides that, magic gives you the power to change almost everything. You can renovate your room with a flick of your wand, you can tidy up your messy apartment in a few minutes and cultivate vegetables and herbs in ideal circumstances. Your life as a witch or wizard seems so easy because you need little time to accomplish great things and can almost make anything out of nothing.

"In addition, your magical powers open up your mind to a whole new, fantastic world full of miracles and adventures. You can encounter new beings like magical creatures, vampires, elves, werewolves, ghosts, dragons, and goblins. Fly on a broomstick, see moving photos or speaking portraits and communicate through your fireplace or a charm. It all seems like a big, crazy and colorful adventure. But as a Muggle these adventures are unattainable, far away dreams in a promised land. Therefore, you must live your bleak, ordinary life without any mind-blowing miracles. You can't see Hogwarts, feel the powerful vibes of a magical spell or charm and hear the song of a phoenix. You are excluded from magical places and you will never be able to defend yourself with a powerful spell or brew a Healing Potion that will heal your broken bones in mere minutes. To answer your question in one sentence. The power you possess, the adventures you experience and the chances you have, fascinate me the most about being magical. Do you think that I'm delusional for wanting this?", Petunia inquired with a raised eyebrow.

Severus was shell-shocked by her passionate speech. He would never have guessed that Petunia desired a life as a witch so much. Sure, he knew about her pleading letter to Prof. Dumbledore, in which she begged him to let her attend Hogwarts all these years ago. But he always thought that this desire was born out most of her envy for Lily and not her dream of being a powerful witch herself. Therefore, Severus had mocked her for it and dismissed it as a desperate attempt to gather some attention. A circumstance that he regretted today because he never thought about the hurtful effects it must have had on Petunia.

If he was completely honest, he never looked at the Magical world from the viewpoint of a Muggle that was aware of its existence. Although his beloved mum had needed to keep her magical powers secret and could only educate him about his magical abilities and the Magical world in stolen hours when Tobias had been at work, she had tried her best to narrate magical fairy tales, relate tales about Hogwarts as well as the customs of the Magical world and instruct him in basic spells, charms, curses and potions. He grew up with the knowledge of being a wizard and how to handle his magical powers. Albeit he had needed to hide his extraordinary powers in his Muggle environment and was beaten black and blue by Tobias for his outbursts of accidental magic. He had always dreamed of his perfect life in Hogwarts, where he would feel a sense of belonging, learn all charms, spells, and potions imaginable and experience exciting adventures with Lily by his side. Sure, his life in Hogwarts admittedly didn't turn out to be as peaceful, happy and colorful as his dreams. If he was completely honest aside from his magical education and meetings with Lily it was a living hell. But he nevertheless couldn't imagine a life without magic.

It would be a nightmare come true if he lost his magical powers from one day to the other. Therefore, he understood Petunia's jealousy of Lily's magical powers. It really must suck to learn about a whole new exciting world, you seemingly couldn't be a part of because you hadn't the abilities to join it. Until today, he was in awe of any new potion he developed, any new spell he created or any new magical creature as well as magical plant he discovered. He desired to explore the Magical world in the search for new potions ingredients, techniques, and utensils and wanted to create ground-breaking new cures and potions. He also relinquished in the feeling of power that coursed throw his veins and the feeling of refreshment that tingled on his skin whenever he performed a charm or brewed a potion. Thence, he knew all about the intoxicating promises of power, fame and endless chances magic could offer someone. If he was completely honest with himself, his thirst for power and knowledge drove him invariably deeper into the Dark Arts because they promised endless power and security against the Marauders. So, Severus could understand Petunia's longing for a magical life.

To comfort her, Severus moved closer to her, patted her empathetically on her shoulder and told her in a soft, reassuring voice, "I don't think that you are delusional for desiring a magical life. On the contrary, it's totally human to desire a simpler life with endless opportunities and special powers. I, myself, couldn't imagine my life without magical powers because they shape my identity. More, to be totally honest, they constitute my identity. Therefore, I wouldn't relinquish them for any fortunes, fame or luck of the world because I would be nothing without them. And you are totally right that their call is intoxicating due to their seemingly endless force and possibilities. Although I read and heard about the magical wonders since I was a mere boy and my mum thought me everything she knew in secret about Potions, Charms, and Transfiguration, the wonders of the Magical world still capture my attention.

"I'm driven by the desire to explore many magical societies worldwide and collect as much knowledge in Potions as possible. So, the allure of power still traps me and to my shame, I must confess, that it oftentimes pulls me to the darker, obscure and moral reprehensible parts of magic. I try to resist the alluring call of revenge, greatness, and might, but sometimes it ensnares my senses and clouds my mind so that I surrender to it. Therefore, I know everything about the compelling call of magic. But, enough about my fascination with the Dark Arts and my battle between my inner desires and morals.

"I'm astonished that Lily never offered you to be a part of the Magical world. Sure, you are lashing out at her for her magical powers and rejection of everything magical in the beginning as "freakish and abnormal" might have discouraged her to ever discuss her magical adventures with you or acquaint you with the Magical culture. But I believed that she would have tried to show you some magical places to reduce your refusal of anything magical. Because you are wrong about your statement that you can't experience any magical adventures without the abilities to perform magic. Everyone who knows about the existence of the Wizarding universe can visit magical places, see a Quidditch match, shop in Diagon Alley or fly with a broomstick if this someone has a witch or wizard who accompanies him or her.

"Hell, you can even travel via Floo, apparate side-along or help to prepare potions ingredients if you know someone that shows you how it is done. And you can always read about the Magical world in history books, newspapers or culture magazines if you know someone magical who would lend them out. Thence, you could very well experience adventures in the Magical world, if you would only ask someone magical to experience them with you. Logically, Lily should be your first contact person because she is your sister and would undoubtedly be glad about your interests in the Magical world. I guess that she even would be relieved. And experiencing these adventures together could be a huge step to repair your broken sisterly bond.

"But, frankly speaking, I know you, Petunia. You are too proud to ask Lily for her assistance because, in your mind, you would appear to be weak, needy and immature due to your vehement, misused as a protective measure, rejection of anything magical your whole life. To spare you blushes and due to the fact that you are my only close friend, I volunteer to be your guide in the Magical world. If you are interested, we can start your magical adventures today by studying magical books and newspapers and brewing a potion at my home. So, what do you say?", Severus asked with an imploring look out of his sparkling onyx black eyes. He really hoped that Petunia would accept his offer because showing the Magical world to her would be a lot of fun and a welcome adventure.


	13. Chapter 12 – The wonders of magic, Part II!

Park near Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia was shell-shocked. With an unladylike gaping mouth, she starred with icy blue eyes at the figure of Severus Snape. Surely, he only wanted to make fun of her. He couldn't really be offering her, an ordinary Muggle, an introduction to the Wizarding world and an education in the basics of the Magical culture and subjects full of wonders and adventures. Wow, she must really be dreaming because her rude childhood nemesis who had always seemed to consider himself superior to any Muggle, couldn't possibly offer her to brew potions with him and read magical books. Petunia pinched herself hard twice in the expectation to wake up from this beautiful dream. But her pinches only left ugly red bruises and didn't alter her environment. She still sat rather uncomfortably in front of the broken red rocking horse beside Severus Snape on the worn-down playground in Cokeworth. The sun was still blazing down on the overgrown field, leaving beads of sweat on her forehead and making her thirsty although it must be hours after her disastrous lunch date with that abusive bastard Vernon. Therefore, Petunia detected, that she was awake and Severus' offer must be real.

Checking the time on her watch, she realized that her bonding talk with Severus lasted 2 hours until now because the time was 5 PM. Undoubtedly, Vernon searched around Cokeworth for her to reprimand her for her sudden flight and control her life or he had already informed her parents about her disappearance. Although, she doubted it because he would be too embarrassed to notify her parents about her missing act. Besides that, if he had informed them, they would call some of her childhood friends or ask around in the neighborhood at first, if they were at all concerned. In addition, they would have sent Lily and her idiotic fiancé James Potter out as a search party through Cokeworth. And although Lily and she were estranged, she nonetheless knew Petunia's favorite spots in Cokeworth and would undoubtedly think about this park. Thanks to their magic abilities, they could find her fast if they wanted to. Consequently, Petunia doubted that Vernon had informed her family about their failed date. But she couldn't risk getting seen with Severus in the park because Lily would never let her forget this strange meeting between two miserable, drinking teens. Besides that, Petunia doubted, that Severus would like to risk a run in with the newly engaged couple. Therefore, Petunia shook herself out of her thoughts and answered Severus in a breathless voice.

"Severus, I will gladly accept your offer because you would fulfill a long-lost dream. I always wanted to know, how potions were brewed because Lily talked about them as if they were some miracle elixir. From overheard talks between you and her, I'm also aware that it was one of her favorite subjects in Hogwarts and somehow resembles chemistry. As I myself was quite fond of sciences like chemistry, biology, and physics in school as well, Potions always intrigued me. In addition, I learned now as well as from Lily's gushings that you are a total genius in the art of potion brewing and can't wait to see you at work. I'm really honored, that you would teach me some tricks in an art that you clearly love and excel in. Besides that, I also realized what a huge sign of your trust this offer really is.

"You offer to show me – your childhood nemesis and nasty Muggle acquaintance – the wonder of the Magical world and to experience new adventures together. More than that. You offer to loan your prized magical books – I know how much they mean to you from Lily's tales and due to the fact that they are only one of the few possessions your beloved mum left you – to me," here Petunia's voice broke off, she zoomed in her gaze onto Severus' sad obsidian eyes and squeezed his hand sympathetically, "to visit magical places with me and to side-along apparate with you to foreign countries. I can't express, how grateful I'm to you and how happy these endless adventures are going to make me. I know, you are probably already rolling your eyes because you can't believe how rosy I imagine the Magical world and how naïve I'm about our adventures, but I don't care about it.

"Deep down in my logical mind, I know that the Wizarding world must not only be a wonderful, adventurous world for Muggles, but also a dangerous and terrifying one. Sure, I understand that a wizard or witch could bewitch a Muggle without his knowledge, due to the nifty memory charms you can perform. Or curse him without any chance of self-defense, due to your powerful magical abilities. But the Magical world is nonetheless a paradise to me. Before you think, that I'm completely daft, let me assure you that I could extract from Lily's recent talks some distressing information. But perhaps I'm suicidal because I still want to be a member of this world.

"Naturally, Lily warned me and our parents about the evil, inhuman group of dark wizards, the Death Eaters, that are hell-bent on ruling the Wizarding world by eliminating every witch, wizard, Muggle, Squib or Magical Creature that stand in their way. I know a little about their ideology of blood purity, which basically means in my opinion that they value a human due to their magical heritage. If your ancestors were all magical, you are superior to everyone. Any other wizard or witch with a Muggle heritage is magically inferior, although there is a huge difference between Half-bloods – the unfortunate accidents of human nature due to their magical parent's error of judgment – and Muggle-borns – the abomination of human nature due to some whims of magic.

"Lily warned me that this group wants to enslave or kill people like her and that they don't back away from torturing and killing their loved ones because they want to hurt them as badly as they can. They regard Muggles like me as mere animals that need to be killed like prickly mosquitos. Thence, I know that I'm in huge danger right now in the Wizarding world, especially if I will visit it with you. Lily also cautioned my parents and me of you. She practically accused you of having joined this murderous terroristic group because you verbally abused her as a Mudblood two years ago. That you exclaimed their ideology of blood purity and their claim that Muggle-borns are worthless thieves of magic. But I don't believe Lily because if you would have joined these terrorists, you wouldn't talk to me right now and offer to introduce me to the Magical world. I think that Lily let her prejudices and the lies of her arrogant, bullying fiancé rule her mind. Thence, I'm not afraid of you and would be delighted to go to your home to learn more about the Magical world. But before we can go, answer me this question honestly. Did you join these magical terrorists?," Petunia implored with a keen look in Severus obsidian eyes.

Severus was taken aback. At first, he didn't know how to answer her question or react to her desire to experience adventures in the Wizarding world despite the anti-Muggle climate. Sure, he knew, that his offer posed a huge risk to her due to the Muggle-loathing tendencies in the Magical world at the moment. He was aware of the anti-Muggle and anti-Muggle-borns propaganda in the midst of Slytherin house. And his annoying Slytherin housemates like Rosier, Mulciber and Avery tried to pressure him into joining the maniac Lord Voldemort since his fifth year in Hogwarts. Hell, he even went along with it, pretended to be interested and listened to their gushings about the Dark Lord and his glorious plans of a Magical world ruled by Purebloods without any Muggle influence.

If he was completely honest, he had thought about joining them for real because he loathed his bastard of a Muggle father. And he has been trapped in some dark moments on the idea that Muggles and wizards or witches shouldn't be allowed to marry due to their vastly different worldviews. But in his logical mind, he knew that he couldn't hate all Muggles based on his experiences with Tobias because he also knew nice Muggles like the Evanses. And Lord Voldemorts ideology of the superiority of Purebloods was total nonsense for your heritage didn't determine your magical powers.

Otherwise, Goyle and Crabbe must be real geniuses instead of the inbreed fools they are. He must be a magically limited potioneer instead of the creative mind he is. And Muggle-borns like Lily or Meadows must be magically untalented instead of the superb witches they are. Thence, Severus didn't believe in the cause of the Death Eaters and he had no intentions of joining them despite any tempting promises – like endless power in the Dark Arts, revenge at his bullies or a scholarship in Potions by a renowned Potions Master – they made. Albeit he hadn't voiced his decision clearly to them yet, he knew that he would be on their enemies list of blood-traitors from the moment he rejected their offer. But Severus mind was made up. He would never join a violent, sadist group of dark wizards that followed an insane maniac, tortured, destroyed and killed for sport without remorse and wanted to burn the Wizarding society to the ground. He wasn't cut out for violent acts against all morals and waiting on the orders of some maniac. Besides that, he observed the Death Eaters among the Slytherins and noticed, that some of them – like Regulus Black – seemed to hate their new ruthless life and frantically searched for a way out.

So, he answered Petunia's question in a sincere tone truthfully, "Petunia, you are right that the Death Eaters are a dangerous terrorist group hell-bent on ridding the Magical world of any Muggle influence. Some of Lily's observations were true," Severus noticed from the corner of his eyes how Petunia flinched at these words and distanced herself a bit from him, "I toyed with the idea of joining them at some point in my life because many Slytherins had already been Death Eaters and they tried to seduce me with promises of knowledge, fame and wealth. But in the last months, I studied them. They all seem to be miserable, inhuman and violent cold beings now. It reflects their ideology and violent actions. I'm not cut out to be a violent, murderous or torturing sadistic servant to an evil mastermind and I don't believe in their ideology. Therefore, I decided to reject their offer and not become a Death Eater.

"I realize that this decision will turn me into an enemy in their eyes and put me at high risk. But I can't live a life of violence, injustice, cruelty, and servitude. Thence, I can assure you that you must not be afraid of me. You are my new friend and I will try to protect you from everything on our adventures. But before we can visit the Wizarding world in person, it would be best, to educate you in its basic history, social conventions and cultural identity. Because you really must try to act, dress and move like a witch in the Wizarding world to not gather any unwanted attention. That's why we should now go to my home and start your magical education." Severus picked up his nearly empty Whiskey bottle, staggered a little while standing up and held out his hand after a moment of composing himself to help Petunia up. He felt re-energized to start these new adventures with Petunia and couldn't believe how his miserable day took a turn for the better.


	14. Chapter 13 – Glum life in Spinner's End!

Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia walked, looking nervously around at the broken streets, bedraggled houses and raged gardens, in hurried steps beside Severus through the run-down industrial parts of Cokeworth. Although she had passed these streets in her distraught escape from Vernon some hours ago, she only now registered the despicable state of most houses, shops, and bowers. Despite the gleaming sun and blue sky, everything in Spinner's End seemed to be so glum, broken and beyond hope. Some kids in dirty, raddled hand-me-downs chased each other around the buildings or played football with a threadbare ball, making a racket and bullying each other.

Undoubtedly, they wanted to escape their fighting parents, drunken elder siblings or empty fridges. Although Petunia realized that her associations to home life in Spinner's End were born out of the common prejudices in Cokeworth, Severus' story and some local newspaper reports about the high rate of unemployment, alcohol addicts and people living in poverty in Spinner's End. Surely, Petunia exaggerated and not all people in Spinner's End were jobless, criminal addicts like Severus' bastard of a father. But she couldn't imagine that anyone with a decent job, income, and family would ever want to live there because everything screamed decay, violence, and despair.

A shiver ran down her spine, as she thought about how fate could alter one's life. If her father didn't have his job in the law firm and her mother wasn't such a caring, over-bearing housewife who taught her daughters lady-like manners as well as societal approved values and kept her house and garden in a beautiful, clean and neat state, she might have grown up in this shadier part of Cokeworth as a miserable, impoverished and abused girl. She couldn't fathom what such a life could do to one's soul. But Petunia didn't want to focus on her glum thoughts because, behind such a run-down house's doors, she would regain a magical education. She was still in awe of Severus' offer and couldn't process that she would be able to help him brewing in a few minutes. Sure, Severus would do most of the work and only explain some easy steps to her, which she perhaps could realize with some luck and concentration. But she would act as an eager pupil and let Severus run the show. She had never dreamed of helping by the creation of a potion and even if it would only be a simple Pepper up or Pain Potion, she simmered with excitement, so that a huge smile graced her face.

She studied Severus form the corner of her icy blue eyes, noticed his slightly staggering from his Whiskey consumption and his sullen, disheveled appearance. Hell, he really looked like a poster child for the broody, sullen and self-conflicted teenaged boy from an abusive home life. But Petunia couldn't belittle him for his grumpy impression because she shared his pain. His rejection by his high-school crush, his grief for the murder of his beloved mum and his depression by his lonely, seemingly hope- and futureless life. She really wanted to give him a new purpose in life and make him believe in his abilities and chances.

She felt so relieved when he confessed to her that he hadn't joined this terroristic group of dark wizards and wasn't planning to join them despite their tempting promises of fame, wealth and knowledge, their extreme peer pressure and their threats of severe consequences for his possible resistance. She realized that he ran a huge risk to end up tortured, severely injured or dead for his defiance. Consequently, he put himself at an even greater risk for educating a mere Muggle in the basics of magical history, culture, and social conventions. She knew that he probably wanted to distract himself from his grief and show off the Magical world to someone who would be in awe of it like a child in a candy store. But his insistence to take this risk upon himself in these dark times really moved her deeply.

Besides that, he had agreed to let her visit his childhood home. A place, he must despise for all the horrible memories it held. Not only had he witnessed there how Tobias had beaten, bullied and controlled his beloved mum. He had also been subjected to this verbally and physically abuse himself and hadn't been allowed to talk about the Magical world. But his beloved, magical mum had in addition been beaten to death in the kitchen. Petunia shuddered, gazed with a pitiful expression on her walking companion and hoped that he would be able to educate her without breaking down. Petunia couldn't imagine how hurtful it must be to cook and eat in the place, where one's mother had been brutally murdered by the hands of her own husband. Hell, she couldn't even imagine how difficult it must be to live in the house of this crime. Surely, in every corner, he must be haunted by violent, cruel memories and images. She really hoped, that their lessons would keep him distracted from his glum thoughts. Although she realized that he had to process his mum's death eventually and let himself grief. But Petunia also knew that he couldn't start a healthy grieving process until he had fully understood the consequences of his mum's murder.

And regarding the facts that he only had been informed about her murder earlier today and escaped his home in a desperate attempt to drown his grief in alcohol, she doubted that he had even stepped consciously into this house and comprehended his total loneliness. Most likely, he had only thrown his trunk into his hall, grabbed a bottle of Whiskey and vanished out of this crime scene. Petunia knew that he would also be deeply ashamed of the state of his furniture, floors, and walls. But she really hoped that he would understand that she wouldn't mock him or hold him accountable for the sorry state of his house because, in her mind, no teen was responsible for maintaining a well-kept garden, clean kitchen or dust-free living room and couldn't change his impoverished environment.

Therefore, Petunia would only offer him her help to clean some rooms or repair some furniture. Although she already suspected that he wouldn't ask her for help and change everything with a few Housekeeping Spells. Hell, he most likely didn't even gift her this offer of educating her in some areas of magic with his run-down house in mind, so that she wouldn't be surprised if he didn't ask her in at first and tried to enchant some of the worst chaos. She definitely wouldn't hold it against him because it mustn't be nice to always be looked upon as the poor, hopeless and freakish boy of Spinner's End.

Petunia realized that they now had been walking for about ten minutes without uttering any word. Sure, she appreciated some silent moments to sort out her emotions and thoughts, but the awkward silence between them began to get on her nerves. She couldn't understand why their thread was torn off. Most likely, Severus only now realized what a huge, life-altering offer he had granted her and was already searching for ways to keep them safe amidst the growing tensions in the Wizarding world. Undoubtedly, he was also already racking his brain for ways to teach her some easy steps in his beloved art of potion brewing.

Well, Petunia hoped, that she wouldn't act like some babbling imbecile in his most likely make-shift laboratory. Perhaps, she had some luck for the first time in her life and would share Lily's great ability in potion brewing. Besides that, she trusted that her interests in science and cooking could help her a great deal in a laboratory. Sure, she didn't really know what potion brewing was about because Lily didn't have a make-shift laboratory at their home or brewed some concoction in their kitchen. But she was nonetheless eager to help him create something magical.

Easing her jumbled thoughts, Petunia decided to focus on her walking companion and future tutor in the Magical world. She couldn't help herself and broke their silence with some nervous ramblings.

"Severus, I really I'm still in awe of your offer and can't wait to get started on experiencing some magical adventures. But our walk in silence is really hacking me off. Especially since you enclosed to me that our future wanderings in the Wizarding world will put you in great danger. Therefore, I decided to start my own game of questions and answers. How will I ever be able to pass off as a witch without my own robes and wand?" she asked him with doubt in her voice.

Severus startled out of his own deep thoughts, looked into Petunia's icy blues eyes skeptically and tried to distract her fears, "Petunia, feel reassured that I would never endanger your life without any security plans. Sure, I will undoubtedly be hounded by the Death Eaters after my defiance as a blood-traitor and they would kill me on the spot if they received knowledge of me tutoring a Muggle in our ways. But I have developed a security plan for us. I will ward my run-down house in Spinner's End against any magical intrusion and enact some alarm spells for magical signatures in the environment.

"Luckily for me, my Slytherin aquaintances never visited me there and don't know where I live due to the circumstance that I tried to hide my growing up in an impoverished, run-down Muggle home. Naturally, they know thanks to my last name and the headlines the disinheritance of my mum made that I'm a Half-blood and live in the Muggle world. But they are unaware of my living conditions. Sure, due to some drunken ramblings and the sorry state of my clothes as well as my hate for Tobias, my poverty isn't a secret to them. But they never called on me at Spinner's End. Therefore, I should be able to hide out in my home.

"Concerning your disguise as a witch, I can be of some assistance to you by transfiguring you a fake wand and some of your Muggle clothes into Wizarding robes. If the bastard Tobias hadn't broken my mum's wand into pieces and burned her Wizarding robes years ago, you could have easily used them. But alas, I must obtain your guise via magic, which is plain sailing. Besides that, I will train you in how to act, speak and walk like a witch, so that you shouldn't stand out as a Muggle. In case we will meet some of my magical acquaintances or Lily's friends who know you we should alter your looks somewhat with the help of glamours and give you a magical alter ego.

"You could be some Half-blood Canadian witch who excels in Potions and decided to visit Britain for a few months to obtain more knowledge about its newest potions inventions and native potions ingredients. We could pretend that I met you in a magical forest hunting down some potions ingredients, took a liking to you thanks to our mutual interests in Potions and agreed to show Britain's magical places to you. But this only is an idea to increase our security. If you don't want to alter your appearance, it is okay." Severus said and awaited her reaction with an imploring gaze out of his obsidian eyes.

Petunia was shocked by this new turn of events. But the prospects of altering her appearance somewhat due to magic and obtaining a new magical identity excited her nonetheless. Therefore, she replied in a cheerful voice, "Wow, I didn't even know that it was possible to alter one's appearance with some spells. Certainly, I will disguise my true self behind some glamours, if it helps us to stay safe in the Wizarding world. Your idea about my magical alter ego also sounds reasonable and exciting. I always dreamed of being a witch, so our ploy enables me to fulfill this dream somewhat. But I think that we should discuss the details of our plan in your home away from prying eyes and ears. So, let's hurry up." With these words, they increased their walking speed and practically chased down the street of Spinner's End.


	15. Chapter 14 – The power to change a life!

Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Out of breath, Severus and Petunia chased down the street of Spinner's End. Severus was really amazed by Petunia's carefree nature and her willingness to alter her appearance with the means of magic. Sure, he had been aware of her desire to experience some adventures in the Magical world. And altering your appearance with the help of glamours and creating a new identity was a huge adventure. But he couldn't understand Petunia's eagerness to put her life at risk in the Wizarding world at the moment. For her association with him and their trips to unique magical places would not only alienate her from her family, especially Lily who seemingly hated his guts and condemned him as some evil, dark wizard, but also endangerd her life. He knew that most of his Slytherin acquaintances would attack Petunia violently on the spot, if they noticed that she was a Muggle. Whereas the mostly pure-blooded Slytherin would only verbally abuse her as a filthy, unintelligent Muggle and brand him a blood-traitor for spending some time with her and having the audacity to show her the Magical world, the cruel, sadistic and power-hungry followers of Lord Voldemort would undoubtedly attack her with curses and jinxes that would most likely torture her or kill her on the spot and try to kill him for his defiance and Muggle loving ways.

On the one hand, Severus feared such a confrontation and believed in the success of his disguise plan. On the other hand, he somehow desired such a confrontation and deemed their plan to hide Petunia's Muggle status as a lost cause. He couldn't really explain his conflicted feelings. But somehow, he wanted to be seen with Petunia in the Wizarding world. Most likely, this desire stemmed from the most hidden part in his subconsciousness that wanted to be acknowledged as a loyal friend, kind soul and tolerant wizard. This part of his subconsciousness wanted to rub his tolerance of Muggles, his new friendship with Lily's elder sister and his ability to spark someone's interests in Magic in the faces of the Marauders, Prof. Dumbledore, and his Slytherin bullies. He, the ugly, impoverished and obsessed with the Dark Arts Half-blood who everyone wrote off as a future Death Eater, looser and despicable human, resisted the callings of the Dark Arts and Death Eaters, made close friends with a beautiful, enthusiastic and kindhearted young Muggle woman and introduced her to the wonders of the Wizarding world.

His friendship with Petunia and offer to experience magical adventures with her wasn't first and foremost a ploy to own his enemies, but rather an opportunity to get to know true friendship, distract his glum thoughts with an exciting new task and transfer his love for magic to another human being. Besides that, for the first time in his life, Severus had the feeling that he could help another teen to discover herself, change her life, fulfill her dreams and be a better person. Furthermore, he realized that this friendship would also shape his life by opening up his formally embittered and glum worldview, future expectations and heart. Hell, it had already altered his life because he finally had decided to tell the Death Eaters to go to hell, start looking for love again and believe in his chances to become a famous potioner. He couldn't believe that his encounter with his childhood nemesis had altered his life so profoundly in one eye-opening afternoon.

From the corners of his eyes, he studied the happily smiling form of Petunia. Despite her running, she had a huge, infectious smile plastered on her rosy flushed face. Her sapphire blue eyes sparkled with mischief and excitement, her long honey-blond looks flew around her like a flowing mane and her floral dress hung to her lean figure and accentuated her curves. Although Severus was still enamored with Lily, he couldn't deny his new attraction to Petunia. He scolded himself for his inappropriate thoughts. He couldn't believe that a pretty face and nice female body could distract him like this. Besides that, he had promised to educate Petunia in magical matters, not to ogle her or make some sleazy attempt to be more than friends. Therefore, Severus tried to distract his mind by thinking about which areas he wanted to cover first with Petunia concerning her education. He realized that the time must be nearing 5.30 PM so that they should begin their brewing as soon as they arrived in his dark home.

With a fright, Severus' eyes started to dilate and he stopped in his tracks. He hadn't thought about the sorry state his parental home must be in. Undoubtedly, Tobias had smashed some furniture and decorative items in his drunken rage that resulted in him beating his mum to death. Severus gulped audibly, tears threating now to moisten his eyes. He trusted that the local authorities had at least cleaned the house of his mum's blood. He breathed deeply, thanking Merlin that his alcohol ingestion didn't result in him throwing up the remains of his Hogwarts breakfast and felt a pain in his heart. He couldn't afford to think about the death of his mum now. He had to push away his grief for another time. Although he had no doubt that Petunia would comfort him, understand his tears and talk to him in a reassuring voice, now was not the time to break down. He would reserve this for tomorrow when he would be alone in his dark, run-down house.

He had promised Petunia to brew a simple potion with her and loan her some magical books, and this was exactly what he intended to do. Before he would invite her to his house, he would nonetheless use some simple charms and spells to clean the rooms, repair some furniture and install some illumination source in his small living room and kitchen. Next, he would clean his hidden behind a magical barrier and created via magic make-shift potions laboratory in a small room in his basement, collect his potions books, ingredient box, cauldrons, scale, stir sticks, spoons, ladles, cutting board, knives as well as mortar and pestle and conjure a second stool as well as some flames. He had decided to brew a simple Laughing Potion because he had stored the ingredients – Alihotsy leaves, Springwater, Billywig wings, Knarl quills, Puffskein hair, and Horseradish powder – in his trunk and it only lasted twenty minutes to brew it. Besides that, it would lighten their moods and its steps were easy to accomplish for any person. He had faith in Petunia's abilities to prepare the ingredients as described and add them in the correct order. He would undertake the stirring of the spoon and heating of the cauldron because it was a little difficult to get the tempo, intensity, and rhythm of the stirs as well as the force of the flame right on the first try. Therefore, Petunia and he would share the tasks equally between them, albeit Petunia would most likely be responsible for the extra ingredient – laughter.

Chasing away his flying thoughts, Severus noticed with a start that they had reached his home. He couldn't look Petunia into her icy-blue eyes and see the pity and shock in them as he looked at his overgrown front garden, his run-down roof, and broken front door. Hell, the state of his home was worse than he had expected. Sure, he knew that the drunken bastard Tobias had never repaired anything on his house. Had even forbidden his mum to tend to the garden for years in fear of gathering the attention of some noisy female neighbor who would bond with her due to her bruised face and urge her to seek help at the local information center. He had wasted his money on liquor, bets, and whores so that their home fell apart. Their fridge had always been empty and his mum hadn't got any money to buy enough stuff to clean their home. With an ashamed look in Petunia's direction, Severus broke the awkward silence with an apologetic sounding statement. He avoided eye contact because he couldn't face her scandalized look. Therefore, he mumbled some words more to himself than to her.

"Well, Petunia. As you know, I hadn't the chance to look after my house, for I only returned from Hogwarts a few hours ago and left this place in a hurry to drink myself into oblivion in the park. Therefore, I haven't checked its condition yet. I can only imagine with horror how it must look from the inside because the bastard Tobias smashed furniture and decorative items in his rage, left his liquor bottles flying around the whole place and didn't provide for my mum with housekeeping money for cleanser and duster, so that she couldn't keep everything clean, tidy and intact. Hence, it will be necessary to clean the house and repair some things. Unlike my mum who suffered from Tobias' abuse and couldn't practice magic without her wand anymore, I can fix everything with a few Cleaning, Lightning and Repairing Spells. I would understand if you only wanted to step into my house after I have cleaned it up so that you could spend the remaining time near the river a few minutes from here. I would pick you up after I'm finished and we could start brewing our Laughing Potion. For the case, that you don't mind the sorry state of my house and want to see me perform some spells, we can step through the front doors now. But I must really warn you. It won't be a pretty sight."

Petunia smiled friendly, stepped in front of him, lifted his hanging head up by gently touching his chin and leveled his obsidian gaze with her sapphire blue. Next, she grabbed his right hand into her left one, squeezed it reassuringly and said in a clear, sympathetic voice, "Severus, you don't have to be ashamed of your impoverished upbringing. The fact that Tobias was a criminal, alcohol addicted, jobless and abusive good-for-nothing husband and dad isn't your fault and I don't hold it against you. I admire you for your strength to be a kindhearted, intelligent and compassionate young man despite your socialization. Hell, I don't know, if I could have survived your upbringing and excel in magic or fulfill some strange Muggle girl her dream of experiencing exciting magical adventures. I know, from my own experience that life isn't fair, but fate dealt you with a glum, painful and lonely life until now and you managed to open up your heart anyway.

"So, please, don't be afraid, to let me see your home and help you fix some things. Although I might not be a huge help if you can alter everything with a few waves of your wand. I would love to see you perform the spells because magic fascinates me and I know that you are a very powerful wizard who will undoubtedly blow my mind with your mesmerizing incantations and graceful wand movements. Therefore, I will not wrinkle my nose, look disdainfully around your place and flee to the nearby river. I will help to fix things up the best I can because it is only a fair, albeit not good enough repay for your tutoring. So, let's face your chaotic home and see what magic can change easily." Petunia looked at Severus expectantly and followed him, still clutching his hand, inside his home. She would be there for him and show him that not everyone disregarded him as a dark, evil and good-for-nothing looser.


	16. Chapter 15 – Blooming flowers of attraction!

Severus' Home, Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

On the way to his house, Severus clutched Petunia's hand tidily. He was deeply touched by her insistence to help him fix his house up and not hold anything of the chaos and horror she would most likely witness against him. Her warm, soft and delicate hand felt incredible in his calloused hand. And for a fleeting moment, Severus caught himself caressing her pale, rosy skin and basking in the warmth of their body contact. Petunia didn't flinch away from his gentle touch but rather blushed an adorable shade of pink, her sapphire eyes sparkling sheepishly and her heart beating wildly, as she boldly returned his caress and squeezed his hand in support. Severus tried to suppress his heated emotions. But his body betrayed him, so that he held on to Petunia's hand on the whole path to his front door, while a tiny voice in his head kept gushing about her beauty and kindness. To distract his mind and impress Petunia, Severus decided to apply a non-verbal and wandless Anti-Overgrown-Plants Charm at first that would free his front garden from the rampant weeds and let the long-lost beauty of the lavender patches come to life again.

His mum had planted the lavender before Tobias had been aware of her identity as a witch, cleared the patches of weeds and gardened them to their bloom until Tobias forbade her to tend to them in a blind outburst of rage. Hence, the beauty of the lavender had withered like the happiness and light inside the obsidian eyes of his mum. Sure, Severus had tried to pull out some weed in his summer vacation. But Tobias had punished him always with a new round of brutal beatings and verbal curses so that he had ceased to tend to their overgrown garden. It seemed like Tobias wanted the whole neighborhood to talk about their life in decay and chaos. Although most neighbors didn't waste their time with juicy gossip about the miserable lives of the Snape family because they had their own demons to battler. Drug addiction, alcoholism, psychological issues, poverty, violence, and unemployment Thence, the run-down state of the Snape house didn't cause any raised eyebrows and their neighbors only called the police, when they really feared for Severus' or Eileen's lives.

Slammed doors, anguished cries, and bruises on Eileen's face didn't alarm anyone so that it had been a miracle that one neighbor had alarmed the police while Tobias had beaten Eileen to death. Severus was grateful that the bastard had been caught red-handed. Otherwise, he would most likely have buried Eileen's body in a nearby forest, reported her as missing and played the grieving husband without remorse, guilt and the looming fear of a prison term for life. Severus dismissed his dark thoughts, looked at Petunia's excited face and decided to use his gardening spell in a minute. His task at the moment was to educate Petunia in the magical culture/history, Potion brewing and how to clean and fix up your run-down house in record time with the help of magic, so that he would fulfill her a long-lost dream. To feel like a member of the Wizarding world. He also wanted to cheer her up and bond with her. Besides that, Severus wanted to impress Petunia and prove to himself that he was an open-minded, ready for new love and a successful future, powerful wizard.

Therefore, Severus focused his mind on removing the weeds from the overgrown lavender patches, enchanting the dried out lavender bushes into their former bloom and vanishing any trash on his front yard. He retained an image of a well-kept, blooming with lavender bushes front yard in his imagination during his spellcasting and uttered soundless the incantations Remove zizania, Floresce lavandula, and Abolesce purgamentum in his head. Without a flick of his wand, his front yard transformed into his intended image. Severus noticed, how Petunia gasped in astonishment, looked in awe around herself and pointed with her left hand on the beautiful lavender bushes. She exclaimed in an excited voice, "Wow, Severus. How did you transform your run-down front yard in this beautiful lavender garden without even uttering a word or using your wand? I wasn't even aware that you could cast spells without a word and/or wand because Lily always uses her wand for any charm or spell she does. But it seems like you can change your environment with your mind alone. This truly is amazing and a vast improvement in comparison to your overgrown front yard. If you can fix your house up this fast, we will be finished in mere minutes. But I'm quite curious: How did you manage this amazing change without your wand and voice?"

Petunia really was in awe of the transformation of the front yard. It looked so full of life now instead of the dead and ugly dustbin it had been. "Wow, magic is even more amazing than I thought if you can change your environment without your wand and/or voice, but rather only with the imagination of your mind like this. Severus really looks different when he casts spells. So self-confident, powerful and focused. It really changes his whole posture and aura dramatically. His shoulders aren't longer slumped, his head isn't longer hung, his eyes aren't longer blank and his facial expression isn't longer grumpy. His magic transforms him into a young wizard with broad shoulders, a raised head, sparkling eyes and a little smug smirk on his face. It really suits him. Hell, I'm even drawn to him" a gushing voice in Petunia's head thought.

She tried to chase this tiny voice inside her head away, blushed a ridiculous shade of pink and looked shyly onto the ground. She couldn't possibly be attracted to Severus. Her childhood nemesis and "the awful boy" of Spinner's End who was trapped in the delusional belief that her perfect sister Lily was his one true love. Sure, he had promised her to open his heart to new love, but Petunia didn't believe that this would be an instant change. She knew only too well that someone couldn't simply turn their feelings off, especially if they were a long-term obsession. Hell, he went to the park to get drunk today partly because of his hurt feelings after hearing of Lily's engagement to his Hogwarts rival and tormenter James Potter. Naturally, Petunia believed in Severus' honesty and his ability to move on from Lily. But she couldn't imagine that he would ever develop any feelings besides friendship for her because she was only a plain looking Muggle woman.

Besides that, she had only noticed a moment ago, that Severus wasn't so bad looking at all. His obsidian eyes sparkled like black diamonds, his tall, lean figure seemed to be slightly ripped and his oval face with strong, masculine features caught her eye. Sure, with his crooked teeth, hooked nose and greasy midnight black hair he wouldn't be considered as handsome in main-stream opinion. But Petunia didn't care about it. In addition, he could most likely fix the state of his hair and teeth with some simple charms if he only started to care about his looks and wanted to impress a new love. And his slightly hooked nose gave his masculine face some character, so it didn't bother her. Hence, Petunia really started to see Severus in a new light and perceived him as a mysterious, dark and striking young man.

Furthermore, looks weren't everything, his inner beauty also counted a great deal. And here, Petunia could only see a young man with brains, courage, a kind heart, and dry wit that wormed his way into her heart. But Petunia suppressed her crush because she wanted to learn something about the Magical world from him and experience magical adventures with him. So it wasn't a great idea to fall for your tutor, destroy a new-found friendship and any chances of learning more about magic because he would undoubtedly run away if he knew anything about her inappropriate thoughts and feelings. Hence, Petunia banished these thoughts from her mind, blushed crimson red as she noticed Severus' long stare in her direction – he really must think, that she was nuts for zoning out like this – and focused on his impending answer.

Severus waited until Petunia awoke from her faraway thoughts, a slight smirk graced his face and his head wagged slightly in amusement. Well, it seemed like Petunia was blown away by his magical powers, so he had accomplished his mission to impress her fully. In moments like this, he wished that he could take a little peek inside her mind because she blushed so lovely and seemed so far away. He really would love to know why she had blushed like this. Surely, she wasn't affected by his long stares and felt attracted to him. There must be another, simple explanation. Perhaps, she was only embarrassed, that she didn't know more about magic although she had a witch as a little sister. This must be the reason. But Severus couldn't shake off the feeling, that there was more to her blushes than her embarrassment. Sure, he could try to gain access to her mind via Legilimency, although he hadn't perfected this skill yet and would never hurt her trust and personal rights like this because she meant a lot to him. And an intrusion into her mind would undoubtedly end their friendship. Therefore, Severus expelled these dark thoughts, cleared his throat and answered her question truthfully.

"Well, Petunia. I hadn't expected that you knew something about the more advanced forms of magic anyway, so your question doesn't surprise me. Sure, wizards and witches need to use their wands and utter an incantation in the most cases to cast a successful charm or spell because you normally need to move your wand in a correct pattern, speak the necessary incantation clearly and concentrate on the desired outcome in your mind to do spellwork. Hence, wand movement, incantation, and intent are the three main factors of spellcasting. So you need to perfect them in your daily spellwork to excel as a wizard without losing too much magical energy. But you can also optimize your powers as a wizard or witch by casting non-verbal and/or wandless spells and charms. You can perform magic without words or your wand so that you aren't depended on your voice or wand. It can give you a huge advantage, e.g., in a duel to surprise your opponent or triumph over him without your wand. In our advanced Hogwarts classes, we are educated in wandless and non-verbal magic. But only the most talented and powerful witches and wizards excel in it with outstanding focus, ambition, and training.

"I can assure you that Lily can also cast spells non-verbally and wandless. Although she might only reserve these abilities for absolute emergency cases because it drains your magical energies more if you aren't practiced in it. I, for instance, am only so adept at it, because I needed to use it in confrontations with the Marauders or my Slytherin housemates to defend myself against an unfair attack and optimized it relentless in endless study hours in Hogwarts. Therefore, I can cast most spells without my wand or voice. Albeit it really drains your magical energy sooner and requires a lot of focus, so that I can't use it the whole time while fixing up my house. But non-verbal and wandless magic isn't necessary to fix up my house anyway because I can repair, vanish, clean or conjure items at almost the same time with the help of my wand. I only wanted to demonstrate to you the different levels of magic and change my front yard this way because my mum always loved lavender. But let's end this conversation and move forward into my run-down house because there are undoubtedly many items that need fixing up." Severus grabbed Petunia's hand tightly and approached his front door with a wildly beating heart. There was much to do.


	17. Chapter 16 – Affectionate touches!

Severus' Home, Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia loved that Severus clutched her hand so tightly. She loved to feel his long, thin fingers gently caressing her pale hand, his slightly rough skin touching her soft skin and his body warmth sending shivers through her body. She realized that her feelings weren't the ordinary emotions one felt while holding hands with one close friend. No, foremost they were a sign of her growing crush on Severus. Sure, Petunia was due to her inferiority complex of Lily, her feelings of being unloved and her abusive relationship with Vernon a love- and touch-starved young woman who wanted to feel the comforting embrace of a parent, the playful nudge of her sister, the reassuring squeezes of a close friend and the gentle touches of a boyfriend. Therefore, it was no surprise that she basked in the gentle caresses of Severus. Especially since she knew that he wasn't a touchy-feely person in general and normally flinched away from comforting hugs and squeezing hands due to the beatings Tobias inflicted upon him and the bullying the Marauders subjected him to. So, Severus normally guarded his emotions behind a stony face, refrained from exchanging affections in public and awkwardly comforted his crying childhood best friend.

Petunia knew this thanks to her spying actions in the past. She had silently followed Lily and Severus on warm summer days to the park and listened in on their intimate talks about magic, Hogwarts and their daily issues hidden behind a nearby rosebush. There, she had crouched on the dirty playground earth, made herself as little as possible and eavesdropped with escalating emotions of anger, jealousy, and envy on their conversations. She had observed that Severus flinched away at first, whenever Lily had hugged him. With time, he had accepted her hugs eagerly and even hugged her back tightly, a content smile gracing his lips and his dark eyes sparkling out of luck. But Lily had limited her hugs the older they got and before their friendship had crumbled down, she refrained from touching him for any longer time.

Petunia suspected, that she had noticed his crush on or undying love for her, didn't reciprocate his feelings and wanted to put some distance between them. Sure, she could have easily talked to him about the fact that their relationship would always stay in the friend zone because she simply wasn't attracted to him. But Petunia knew that Lily secretly basked in the attention of Severus and was flattered by his crush so that she didn't want to reject him head-on. Therefore, she let him live in the illusion that they could be more than friends if he only gave up his studies in the Dark Arts and stopped his fights with the Marauders. Most likely, she thought that it was the right thing to do because she would otherwise break his heart and endanger their friendship.

But what she hadn't taken into her account was that she would only play with his feelings, boost his hopes for a happy romance and tear out his embittered heart in the end. During her spying adventures, Petunia had noticed furthermore hat Severus comforted Lily with an awkward pad on the back or an uncomfortable half-hug, whenever she cried about her awful, magic-hating sister or the pure-blooded racists in Hogwarts. His cheeks had been flushed red out of embarrassment, his obsidian eyes had looked helplessly around the park and his face had been drawn into a miserable grimace. It was evident that he had never learned how to comfort anyone and that he felt socially awkward. But he had screwed up his courage and disregarded his uncomfortable feelings to be there for Lily. Luckily for Petunia, it seemed like Severus needed to feel her comfort and exchange touches during his grieving and maturing process. So Petunia vowed to let her heart and instincts decide how she wanted to handle her new attraction to him. If he was open for some romance, she would most likely go for it.

Blushing slightly, Petunia cleared her mind and focused on her environment. She knew that her reaction to the undoubtedly disturbing and shocking things she was going to see inside the house was vital in developing a close bond with Severus. She needed to school her features and couldn't show him any everlasting expressions of pity or horror because he would most likely take it as an insult or pity party. Sure, she didn't want to disguise her reactions because she wanted to be open and real with him. But she would nonetheless be aware of her facial expressions because if their roles were reversed, she didn't want to be overwhelmed with pity or disgust. Besides that, Petunia could comprehend that Severus felt ashamed of his loveless, impoverished upbringing and run-down housing situation so that he would certainly get her overly emotional reaction wrong. Thence, she reminded herself that Severus couldn't change his living situation until now and that it was of utmost importance that she signaled him with her reactions to not judge him, see him in another light or shame him for his miserable home life. She would support him, be there for him and fix his house with him together without ever changing her opinion about him.

Consequently, Petunia looked into Severus' onyx eyes, noticed that he seemed to hesitate to open his front door out of shame and gazed nervously around the newly enchanted lavender garden. She squeezed his hand reassuringly and addressed him in a confident, soft voice. "Come on, Severus. You said it yourself. There is much for us to do in your home. Don't be afraid or ashamed of its condition. I won't judge you for it and admire you for your courage to face your issues head-on and immediately. Other teens at our age would undoubtedly shy away from such a huge task and live in their unfit home. Sure, you can change everything easily thanks to your magical powers. But it nonetheless takes courage and ambition to fix everything up. Besides that, I can't wait to see you cast any spells or charms with your wand because you looked so powerful and confident while gardening your front garden that I saw your brilliant true self for the first time without any mask. And I must confess that I like this version of you very much. So, let's turn your doorknob and show me the miracles of magic."

Petunia's pep talk boosted Severus self-confidence and lessened his fears. Well, he would need to step into his house eventually and show it to her, if he was going to fulfill his promise of educating her in basic magic. He couldn't fathom that Petunia wouldn't mock him for his poor upbringing and even called his renovation plans brave. Sure, he realized that it was somehow brave to face the place where your beloved mum had been murdered by her abusive bastard of a husband without breaking down. He appreciated that Petunia didn't voice this though because it ripped open his raw wound and tried to overwhelm him with a new wave of grief. Hell, now was not the time to think about the horrible fate of his deceased mum. He banished these thoughts and focused on the positive vibes Petunia's message sent out to him. She would be there for him like a true friend, help him face his issues head-on and fix his crumbled down home. But the best part of her pep talk wasn't her admiration of his powerful and effective magical spellcasting, although that really boosted his belief in his abilities, but rather her confession of liking him a lot.

It seemed like his sense of togetherness, blind understanding and feeling of security were shared by her. Severus' face graced an honest smile for a brief moment. A small voice inside his head urged him to test the extent of her feelings during the coming weeks. Perhaps, he was lucky and she felt attracted to him. Although he really couldn't imagine it. Sure, he had only started to notice her kind heart, witty humor and striking beauty that caused his new-found attraction today and perhaps Petunia had had a similar epiphany. But Severus didn't want to build her up like an unattainable, idealized dream woman inside his head as he had regrettably done with Lily. He would test out the waters and go with the flow because he wanted to regret nothing. No holding back of feelings or disguising his true self to appeal to the beautiful woman he liked this time around. Well, he would see what the future would hold for them. But he really needed to step into his run-down house now because Petunia would think him mental otherwise. Therefore, he squeezed her hand back in gratitude, mumbled a quick 'thank you for your support' under his breath and turned his doorknob with a wildly thumping heart and his Ebony, 12", Dragon heartstring cored and fairly flexible wand clutched tightly in his right hand.

At first, he uttered a quick Air-Refreshing Charm (Recrea aera) and Light-Creation Spell (Lumos maxima) to vanish the fusty smell of the narrow hall and enlighten their view. Despite it being a sunny summer evening, only sparse light reached the inside of his dark house because the few, narrow windows were coated with a thick layer of dust and grime. Besides that, the only ineffectively luminiferous ceiling lamp had been broken. But it couldn't light his entering hall anyway because the power had been turned off thanks to unpaid bills. He had noticed this immediately during his quick visit inside his house after his return from Hogwarts. It wasn't a huge problem for him because he could do most things without power thanks to his magical abilities. He could cook a meal, refrigerate his foods, wash his clothes, enlighten a room, listen to the radio and dry his hair with some simple spells. Furthermore, he didn't need power to watch TV anyway because he didn't like this Muggle invention. Hence, he could save himself some money by not using electricity.

Breathing in the refreshed air – he had used a pleasant citrus smell to refresh the room – Severus looked around himself. From his narrow entering hall, a door on his left let into his dinky kitchen, a door on his right let into his run-down living room, an old, wooden staircase at the end of the hall let to his second floor, where his old cramped childhood bedroom, an old-fashioned, nasty bathroom and the chaotic master bedroom of his parents where situated, and a simple, cold stone staircase further down the left side of the hall in a little downstairs cloak space let into his basement.

Severus knew that Petunia must be appalled by the cracking, dirty wooden floor and the torn light blue wallpaper. So he vanished the dirt and polished the wood floor with a swish of his wand as well as changed the wallpaper into a pleasant cream colored one with the power of his imagination. He really loved his magical abilities because he could renovate his whole house and fix everything solely with his imagination and without spending any penny. He wanted to fix his living room first, for he wasn't ready to face the room where his mum had been beaten to death. Therefore, he addressed Petunia who had until now watched his spellcasting with awe and sparkling icy-blue eyes without uttering a single word, in a confident voice, "As you can see, magic comes in handy for keeping your house clean and refurbished. But this was only the first half-room on our magical do-it-yourself tour, so we better hurry up into the next room. Let's look what an utter mess my living room is in." Severus gently guided her in front of the closed living room door. He hoped that it wouldn't be as chaotic as he imagined it to be.


	18. Chapter 17 – Comfort causes new sparks to fly!

Severus' Home, Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia stepped side by side with Severus in his living room, their hands were tightly intertwined. She tried to stifle the shocked cry, that involuntary escaped her mouth, at the sight of this living room. Everything was in utter chaos. The whole run-down wooden floor was covered in dust, dirt, empty liquor bottles and the remains of destroyed furniture. Splinters of wood, shreds of glass and ripped apart cushions covered the floor in a thick crust of destruction. The old-fashion, ugly moss-green wallpaper drooped in stripes from the damp walls, the small, old windows blocked the sunbeams of the hot summer day thanks to a thick layer of dust and the ceiling lamp lay broken into tiny shreds on the threadbare, broken and cluttered with stains most likely from spilled beer or greasy pizza slices, sagging dark brown four-seat sofa. Some newspaper pages lay in the corners of the room, that was bare except for the old, sagging sofa, a matching, sagging and slashed open armchair, a broken, little dark brown coffee table, an empty, run-down entertainment cabinet, and a huge, empty dark brown shelf. Severus' living room was a picture of utter destruction.

Mr. Snape must have knocked everything to pieces in his drunken, violent rage before he had murdered Mrs. Snape. Petunia squeezed Severus' hand reassuringly. She studied him from the corners of her icy blue eyes and realized, that he seemed like frozen into a solid ice sculpture. He didn't move one muscle in his face, that was characterized by his firm scowl and blazing onyx eyes, or lift his wand to vanish the debris of his former living room. She could imagine, that his mind was displaying cruel memories of Tobias' domestic abuse or fabricating horrible images of his mum's fight for her life. Sure, Mrs. Snape was beaten to death by her sadistic, abusive bastard of a husband in her kitchen, but Petunia had no doubts about her suffering in the living room. Most likely, Tobias had ordered her around to bring him a beer or cook him a stew while lazing about in an alcoholic stupor on the old, sagging sofa watching TV. Mrs. Snape hadn't reacted fast enough or cooked the meal to his tastes so that he had hit her with his fists, called her unimaginable names and kicked her under the coffee table. Next, he would have destroyed the furniture in his rage, chased his injured wife into the kitchen and beat her to death in front of her stove. Petunia shuddered at the thought of Mrs. Snape murder. She clutched Severus hand more tightly, hugged herself with her left arm and tried to clear her mind.

If she experienced this inner cinema with horrible, disturbing images, she could only guess which terrible hell Severus went through right now. For he had been subjected to Mr. Snape's abuse every day of his life in Spinner's End and experienced his unforgivable, violent behavior to Mrs. Snape first-hand. She wanted to take his pain, anger, and despair away, hug him and awake him from his nightmarish daydream. She had been amazed by the changes he could enact with his magic in the entering hall. It was really beautiful, unbelievable and amazing to see, what magic was able to do. Petunia felt like being the witness to a true, mindblowing miracle and she didn't want to close her eyes while witnessing spellcasting out of anger or roll them out of envy and faked annoyance for the first time in her life. She felt at peace with herself, and although a tiny little voice inside her head tried to convince her, that she was still jealous of Lily for her magical powers and hated her guts, she chased it away by focusing on the wonders she experienced. Thence, Petunia wanted to give Severus something back, that would cheer him up and comfort him.

She couldn't do any magic, so a magical trick or prank was out of the question to wake him up from his living nightmare. She could only think about using her body as a means to transfer some comfort to him. Normally, Petunia wouldn't be so straightforward and console anyone with gentle touches and tight hugs, but Severus was a special someone to her. And her heart told her, that he needed her hug now and she desperately wanted to throw her arms around him. She couldn't really process, why she felt so sad by Severus' paralyzed state or wanted to convey her feelings with a tight hug because she didn't understand her newfound attraction to him either. But she wouldn't rack her brains over these new emotions now. Severus clearly needed her, therefore it wasn't a time to overanalyze everything and question her feelings and actions. She would have to trust her instincts and gut feeling. So, Petunia decided to act. She turned her body to her right, moved in front of Severus and enveloped him in a close embrace. At first, he flinched slightly and didn't react to her embrace. It felt like embracing a tree and Petunia's heart started to dive. She felt stupid for acting on her impulses, Severus clearly didn't appreciate her newfound touchy-feely character.

God, how could she have been so dumb as to expect some positive reaction out of him? He was clearly mortified by her straightforwardness and thought her to be a crazy person. Hell, she had messed everything up with her ridiculous new feelings. He wouldn't want to educate her in magic right now and send her home. She could kiss her magical adventures goodbye, bury her new close friendship with Severus and pass her vacation being miserable thanks to her over-driving, uncontrollable hormones, and emotions. Panicked and truly embarrassed, Petunia wanted to dissolve her awkward embrace with a flushed face, as Severus hugged her back tightly. He enveloped her in his arms, gently caressed her back and swayed her soothingly. Petunia could feel his warm, whiskey and mint smelling breath on her cheek, breathed in his herbal, masculine scent and basked in his body heat. A pink blush kept creeping up her cheeks as a new thought crossed her mind. She could kiss him on the lips if she would only bend her head slightly. Petunia banished it quickly because it was too quick to think about passionate kisses and lustful touches. Hell, she hadn't even acknowledged her crush on him openly to herself or talked with him about these unexpected, new sparks between them. Most likely, she was the only one, who felt them right know.

Clearing her mind, Petunia dissolved their gentle embrace somewhat by stepping a step back and gently caressing his cheek. She knew, that she didn't lessen the romantical tension with her actions one bit, but she wanted to express her understanding and comfort with her touches. Thence, she acted on her gut feeling again. She realized, that her actions must be really confusing for him and that he even could interpret them as pitying him, so she addressed him in a gentle voice, looking straight with her sapphire eyes in his sparkling onyx ones.

"Severus, I understand, that your mind must be in chaos right now and bombarding you with hurtful memories and painful images. I can't pretend, that I can truly comprehend the dark images, that without any doubt haunt your mind right now, but I share your pain and know who it feels to be helpless and abused. If you want to talk about it at the moment, please don't refrain from opening up to me. But I could understand if you didn't feel like discussing your feelings at the moment. So, if you would only want to fix your living room up as fast as you can and be done with it, I will help you as best as I can. Whatever your decision will be, know that I will be there for you."

Petunias' words startled Severus. Like her embrace, they let his heart beat wildly and transferred a warm feeling to his heart. He couldn't deny it any longer. He was attracted to her, longed for her touches and kind words and wanted to make her happy. Sure, at first, her tight embrace had surprised and angered him. He had been so far away with his thoughts, obsessed with memories of Tobias' sadistic pleasure in the suffering of his mum and himself and horrible images of his mum's fight for life, that the warm arms caressing his back gently, panicked him at first. A small voice inside his head tried to convince him, that Petunia only embraced him out of pity and used him to feel like a member of a magical world. Although some anger kept bubbling up inside his stomach, Severus suppressed it and started to think logically. Petunia wouldn't need to exchange gentle touches with him if she was only interested in learning more about the magical world and pitying him. If these things had been her goals, she would have looked pitiful at him for his horrendous living conditions and tried to speed his renovations up so that they could start their brewing or creating her fake magical identity sooner.

No, her offer of helping him with his renovations, gentle touches, comfort-transferring tight embraces, and pep talk showed him, that she truly cared about him, wanted to cheer him up and didn't mind touching him. If he was lucky, she felt the romantic sparks between them too and wanted to act on them. But Severus vanished this thought quickly because Petunia studied his reaction intensely out of her stunning sapphire blue eyes. Severus didn't want to seem like a mental lunatic so that he cleared his voice and answered her in a leveled tone.

"Petunia, I really appreciate your offer of listening to my sorrows. But I don't want to talk about them right now. I have promised you, to brew a potion with you today. And to keep this promise, we really should start to fix up this utter mess real quick. I can't believe, that this bastard hacked everything to pieces in his drunken rage. Luckily, my magic can fix everything real quick and vanish any memories of this drunken bully watching football in an alcoholic stupor. I really only need to mutter some spells and flourish my wand a few times and everything will change immediately. You can think about new wallpaper and furniture for this room because I don't plan on keeping anything. So, as soon as you have thought about something nice, talk to me about it and I will start to transfigure the items according to your wishes because I trust your sense of aesthetic taste and knack in interior design. In the meantime, I better stop talking and start acting." With these words, Severus vanished the debris and dirt from the floor with a Vanishing Spell, clean the wooden floor with a simple Tergeo and let some light inside the living room with a simple Scourgify by removing the grime of the windows. Severus smirked at the easy improvements. He really loved magic.


	19. Chapter 18 – Extracting mental images via magic is cool!

Severus' Home, Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia was really floored by Severus' trust in her abilities as an interior designer and her aesthetic taste. She couldn't believe that he would entrust her with the task of planning a new design for his living room. Sure, he could change anything he didn't like with a quick swish of his wand after she had left to not hurt her feelings. But she truly trusted him to be honest with her about her new design choices in his living room. Petunia knew that some girls would perhaps be in the sulks about his offer because they would feel like he cemented the gender stereotypes of women being responsible for the house and men focusing on ordering any female around. But Petunia didn't see his behavior as a typical reinforcement of gender roles at all. Although Petunia supported the women's rights movement and fought for change in their men dominated society, she didn't understand the constant talk about challenging men's worldviews, statements or actions. Sure, she didn't want to be labeled as some docile housewife who would have to focus her attention only on her housekeeping, boyfriend, and budget. She would rather be seen as an independent woman with her own career plans, dreams, and ideas. Nonetheless, she didn't see Severus' demand to help her design his living room as an insult or chauvinistic behavior. Rather as a sign of his trust and acknowledgment of her equality.

She wanted to confirm his trust and vowed to design his living room in colors that suited him and a style that he would like. As Severus was a private and practical person who despised every extravagance Petunia decided to choose a classic, clear and warm ground design for his living room. While Severus was busy vanishing any debris with foreign Latin words or repairing any broken furniture with a quick swish of his wand, Petunia imagined how his new living room should look like inside her head. She decided to color the walls in a light, warm mix of beige and grey colors. Whereas the wall on the window side of the room should be colored in beige, the opposite wall should be covered in a mocha, cream and light-grey stripped stylish wallpaper. The two remaining walls should be painted in light grey. The floor should be a light brown parquet floor and the ceiling painted in beige.

She pictured a huge beech shelf on the left grey wall on which he could store all of his Potions tomes, magical books, and Muggle classics because Severus was an avid reader. In front of the windows on the right side, she wanted to place a comfy, little beech dinner table with four classical, clean designed and cushioned with light-grey pads, beech chairs, so that Severus could host some guests. Besides that, she wanted to place a little, beech sideboard before the right grey wall, in which he could store some of his magical artifacts and dishes. On the striped lengthways wall, she wanted to install a comfy, warm fireplace. For she knew that witches and wizard could travel via it. Although she never actually traveled via Floo, Lily had chatted excitedly about her travels from Hogsmeade to Diagon Alley via the Floo network.

Therefore, Petunia thought, that a fireplace would not only heat his living room but also come in handy for his communication with the Magical world. Then Lily had also gushed about the possibility to use your fireplace as a telephone. Before the fireplace, Petunia imagined a comfy, four-seat grey leather sofa resting behind a soft, carefree, cream-colored and rectangular pile rug with a geometrical pattern, on which a classical, clean beech coffee table would stay. The only other missing furniture she pictured inside the room would be an easy, grey leather armchair in the right corner beside the bookshelf, where Severus could chill out and read his books. And a little, beech entertainment cabinet on the left side of the fireplace, where he could store a record player and a TV. The finishing touches would be light mocha-colored curtains down to the floor, framed, colorful pictures of Potions' ingredients and/or Potions. A huge, luminiferous six-flaming ceiling lamp composed of a matt, chrome-colored trestle, and six opal white glass screens as well a matt, chrome-colored floor lamp with an opal white glass screen beside the armchair and beige and cream-colored sofa cushions.

Petunia was quite sure that Severus would like her new design concept. She noticed that he had already vanished every debris, empty bottles and destroyed upholster, and seemed to be studying her intently. Blushing slightly, Petunia cleared her throat, looked deep into his sparkling onyx eyes and prepared to address him in an excited voice. She couldn't stop thinking, that his dark eyes sparkled like obsidian diamonds in the sun, his face seemed so relaxed, youthful and carefree, and his casual clothes clung tightly to his lean, subtle muscled frame, while he was casting his spells. He really looked handsome, powerful and sexy like this. Petunia cleared her thoughts. Now wasn't the time for her silly crush to cloud her mind. He expected to hear her ideas about the new interior design of his living room, so she exclaimed to him in a friendly, joyful voice.

"Wow, Severus. I can't believe that you would entrust me with the important task of re-designing your living room. It really is an honor for me. I have pictured your new living room inside my head and I'm sure that you are going to love it. My design idea is classical, light and smart so that you should feel very comfortable in your new living room. I don't want to list every item up for you because it could be really confusing and bound to cause some taxing misunderstandings. I know that you can almost do everything with magic. So, are there any possibilities to make my imagined picture inside my head visible to you? Is there any spell out there that allows you to look inside my head or conjure my idea outside of my head on to a visible screen?"

Severus' eyes widened. He had been so engrossed in silently studying her person, her rosy, luscious lips, pensive facial expression, and attractive curves, that he hadn't expected her to talk to him. So, her melodic voice had startled him out of his pleasant daydream. But he couldn't have heard her right. She wouldn't entrust him with entering her mind. This was such a huge invasion of her personal rights and implied a base of trust, respect and truthfulness friendship, that he couldn't fathom her thought process. "She really must like me and trust my magical abilities," Severus thought absentmindedly. "I mean, I could rack through her mind and look into her deepest secrets and hidden emotions if I wanted to because she would be at my mercy. Merlin, if I had bad intentions in mind, I could also rearrange her memories or damage some brain area. She really must trust me." Being flattered and blushing pink from this realization, Severus became extremely self-critical. He didn't want to look like a blushing, daydreaming fool, so he schooled his features and decided to answer Petunia directly. As he gazed into her beautiful sapphire eyes, that transferred mixed emotions of trust, hope, care, and fears, Severus' words firstly died in his throat due to a warm feeling. After basking in this strange feeling for a minute, Severus cleared his mind, stepped in front of Petunia and squeezed her right, warm hand gently to answer her in a deep, breathless sounding baritone.

"Wow, Petunia. I can't express how overjoyed I'm about your new design plans for my living room. As expected, your brilliant, creative mind works fast. I'm sure that your ideas will be to my liking and impressed that you can picture the whole, newly renovated living area inside your mind. My creativity and power of imagination don't suffice for this. You're right. Magic can do almost everything and there are existent spells that enable you to look inside one others head or transfer one's mental images into hologram-like pictures.

"I'm mind-blown that you would entrust me to look inside your head because mind magic is a very difficult, distinguished art of magic. It requires a trust-based bond between the spellcaster and one's victim and a highly-skilled magician because the victim puts one's mental and emotional well-being into the hands of the spellcaster. There are multiple risks like brain damage, loss of consciousness, amnesia, emotional disorders to take into consideration. Although I'm well-read in the art of magically navigating through the mind of other humans called Legilimency via a nonverbal, wandless Legilimens, my practical experiences are fairly limited, so that I would prefer another method to extract your mental image of my new living room design.

It exists a spell called Ostende fantasias that enables a magician to extract your mental images by moving his wand to your temple. It also requires mutual trust and eye-contact between the caster and its victim. After one has extracted the mental image in a long, silver strand, it transforms into a hologram-like visible image in front of one's eyes. Are you on board on using this mind magic? Or do you have any more questions?"

Petunia was shocked by his revelation that skilled and talented witches and wizards could potentially delve into her mind, see her memories or rearrange her memory without her even knowing about it. Although it scared her a bit and made her feel powerless, she also thought it to be a cool, helpful skill for the law enforcement or therapy sessions. She knew that Severus would never betray her trust by delving through her mind without her permission. Thence, she tried to process this new information, relaxed visibly and bombarded him straight-on with a few questions that still riddled her mind.

"Wow, I didn't even know about the existence of mind magic. And although it sounds really cool, I must say that it also scares me a little. Surely, there must be laws, which forbid wizards and witches to perform this mind magic forcefully on other humans, especially Muggles? And does a victim really not notice the intrusion into one's mind? I'm also curious about the Mental Images Extraction Spell. Don't get me wrong. I'm quite excited about giving it a shot because it sounds so mind-blowing and totally fits our needs. But I would really like to know if I must mind something special or if I would feel a slight tingle in my head."

Severus had expected these questions from Petunia, so he tried to answer them patiently and honestly. Merlin, if he had been a Muggle and someone told him that he could look inside his mind, he would also be concerned. So, he answered her inquiry in a soothing, gentle tone.

"Well, it seems like I don't need to educate you about magic at all because you draw some really impressive logical conclusions yourself. As you undoubtedly know form Lily, witches and wizards are punished for performing magic in front of non-magical persons, who aren't aware of the Magical world, or on any non-magical humans without their consent. A wizard or witch that uses Legilimency without consent, gets directly sent to Azkaban for a few years. Therefore, you are quite safe from such criminal acts in the Muggle world, although the raising movement of Lord Voldemort will attack any Muggle everywhere without any care for the magical laws. Unfortunately, you really wouldn't notice a mental attack of a skilled Legilimens because he doesn't use an incantation or wand and his intrusion into your mind doesn't leave any pain or traces.

"If an untalented Legilimens delves into your brain, you will feel a sharp pain in your head, get nauseous or lose your consciousness. But although you will suffer under this intrusion, you can't fight against it because the witch or wizard could put you under different controlling spells. Rest assured, that I would never betray your trust and hurt your privacy like this. Besides that, I will do everything in my power to protect you against such attacks.

"Regarding the Mental Images Extraction Spell, I can calm you. You only need to focus really hard on your mental image of my re-designed living room, keep eye contact with me for a few seconds and stay relaxed so that I can extract your mental image without causing you any discomfort. You might feel a little tingle thanks to the magical energy of the spell, but that's it. So, are you ready to show me your magnificent ideas for my living room?" Severus asked Petunia with a cheeky smile.


	20. Chapter 19 – Turning up the heat!

Severus' Home, Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia was focused on her mental image of the new living room designs. She trusted Severus and knew that he wouldn't hurt her. Therefore, she signaled him with a nonverbal nod of her head, a reassuring squeeze of his hand and trusting look into his onyx eyes, that she was ready. Upon receiving her signals, Severus moved his dark, beautiful carved wand on to her temple, took her chin gentle into his left hand and established solid eye contact with her. Severus' gentle touch, piercing obsidian eyes and calm breath, startled her for a moment because inappropriate images kept invading her mind. In her daydream, she saw Severus luscious, pale lips kissing her everywhere, his wicked tongue dancing with hers for domination, his lustful obsidian eyes undressing her and arousing moans escaping his throat in his sexy baritone. Petunia flushed bright red, broke their eye contact and scolded herself for her arousing daydreams. She couldn't think of him like that. He was her new male friend who understood her, vowed to be there for her and to introduce her to the Magical world.

Sure, she could drown in his endless, sparkling obsidian eyes, devour his witty, soft lips and kiss his strong cheekbones, and his deep baritone made her tingle inside, but she needed to clear her mind and focus on the designs for his living room now. He expected her to focus on her designs and she wouldn't disappoint him and embarrass herself by transferring lustful images to him. She could focus on her mental image of his new living room, keep steady eye contact with him and blind out her crush on him. He needed her help in renovating his living room, not a female friend who lusted after him. Besides that, she wanted to see the workings of the Mental Images Extraction Spell Ostende fantasias because it really sounded wicked and she couldn't wait to see her designs for his living room put into motion. Therefore, she concentrated on her living room designs, breathed in deeply and looked Severus straight in the eyes. Thankfully, he had patiently interrupted the spell, gave her some minutes to compose herself and locked eyes with her head-on. When they had established a steady eye contact, sapphire meeting onyx, Severus move his wand to her temple, tipped it gently against it and uttered the incantation Ostende fantasias.

Petunia felt a light tingle inside her head that wasn't painful but nonetheless caused her to feel strange. Before she could overanalyze this strange new feeling that was supposedly caused by Severus' powerful magical energy, she noticed an image transforming in front of her eyes. Severus signaled her that she could break off their eye contact and Petunia looked in awe at the light, building picture. In mere seconds, her mental image of his new living room in its grey, mocha and beige colors and beech wood furniture transformed in a hologram-like state. She couldn't believe how unique, powerful and amazing magic really was. And that you could essentially see inside the heads of other people with one simple spell. Although her envy kept screaming loudly inside her head, Petunia decided to live in the moment and enjoy the magic around her. It was so amazing to feel the magical energy brush your skin or a powerful spell cast in front of your own eyes. And Petunia wanted to throw her arms around Severus' neck in gratitude. A single tear escaped her eyes because she couldn't process the beauty and miracle of the magical world and the fact that she could be a member of it all thanks to Severus.

Lost in her own awe, Petunia hadn't noticed that Severus had approached her. He stood mere centimeters away from her, his hot breath brushed her cheeks and his sparkling onyx eyes beamed as he put his hand gently on her chin, wiped her single tear gently away and hugged her in gratitude. Petunia focused all her self-control on not kissing him passionately on the lips because he stood mere millimeters away. Merlin, if she acted on her instincts, she would probably make a fool of herself and mess up her chance to live out some magical adventures, for Severus couldn't possibly share her wish to snog each other senseless. So, Petunia calmed her wildly beating heart, embraced Severus tightly and breathed in his unique, herbal scent. If she couldn't kiss him, she could surely bask in his body warmth and share some tight hugs like a best friend. She heard weakly how Severus mumbled some words into her ear. Although his closeness and hot breath sent shivers down her spine, Petunia used all her willpower to make out their meaning.

He mumbled inside her ear "Wow, Petunia. Your design ideas are so amazing. The grey, beige and mocha color scheme will help me to calm down after a long day of brewing and the huge book self will be the ideal place for my various Potions tomes and Dark Arts books. Thank you so much for your creative mind. I couldn't have come up with anything as stylish and beautiful as this." He gazed her deeply into her icy-blue eyes, transferring his astonishment and gratitude with a warm look, and stroked her cheeks lovingly. Petunia's heart skipped a beat as he kissed her blushing cheeks red-faced. Although he looked quickly shyly away, Petunia couldn't stop a tiny voice inside her head cheering her on to kiss him on the lips or raising her hopes to be more than a female best friend to him. Lost in her own daydreams, she barely noticed that Severus kept rambling on.

"I hope that you didn't cry out of fear for my reaction or some pain I caused you with my spell. I really tried to be as gentle as possible and as you can see I'm overjoyed by your plans. That's an understatement. I actually love them. And with some quick wand waves, everything should be like you imagined it. I'm so happy, that we're such good friends because I don't think that I could have renovated my living room without you. So, are you okay? You don't feel any pain?" He inquired concerned, checking her body for any visible signs of discomfort and gazing at her with empathy. His concerned voice and searching looks warmed Petunia's heart and she couldn't stop a beaming smile gracing her lips. To reassure him that she wasn't in pain from his spell, she squeezed his hand gently, kissed him tenderly with quivering lips on his still blushing cheeks and addressed him in a joyful voice.

"No, Severus. Your spell didn't hurt me one bit. Sure, I could feel a lit tingle inside my head, but your magical energy only warmed my skin. And I could never be afraid of you because I know that you would never hurt me. I only shed a tear out of an overload of feelings and awe. Magic is really such a beautiful, unique and awesome wonder that it baffles me completely. And you look so powerful and self-confident while spellcasting that it transforms you into this new person who is so in sync with his mind, motions, and voice that it really overwhelmed me. These were tears out of joy and experiencing something so beautiful and wonderous. I can't thank you enough for your offer to share these magical moments with me. You don't realize how happy you make me with it. It's like several impossible dreams coming true. So, show me some magical spells again. How are you going to transfigure this bare room into my mental image? Besides, I'm glad that you like my designs. It really means a lot to me."

Severus was at first shell-shocked by her kiss on his cheeks. Sure, he had kissed her first. A reaction solely based on his instincts as well as his wish to express his gratitude and feel close to her. But he hadn't expected her to return his kiss. If he was completely honest with himself, he had expected her to run screaming from his house, because every girl had rejected his romantic approaches and close body contact with him in the past. Merlin, perhaps he was lucky this time and Petunia also felt this deep connection and electrical tension besides them. His heart thumped wildly while he looked at her and he needed to use some of his Occlumency abilities to keep a rational mind. If he only acted on his hormones, needs, and wishes, he would have snogged her senseless by now. But he had promised her to introduce her to the wonders of the Magical world and he would fulfill his promise by showing her some neat and easy transfiguration spells. Sure, he could show off his skills a little by swishing his wand and impress her, but he wanted to start brewing his Cheering Up Potion with her today. So, the clock was ticking.

"Petunia, I'm so glad that you enjoy magic so much. You will see by getting familiar with it and knowing more about it that it is more miraculous than you can imagine. And you're right. I better hurry up with my spellwork. Some easy transfiguration and decoration spells will turn this room into your mental image in mere minutes. Only watch, be in awe and enjoy it." Severus answered her previous question smiling cheekily. He clutched his beloved wand in his right hand and concentrated on the different spells. At first, he transfigured the floor into a light brown parquet via Transfigura solum by focusing on his mental image and pointing his wand on the floor. After that, he transformed the ceiling via Colora constratum in beige, painted the walls in their designated colors via a quick, swishingColora parities and transformed the design of the windows via Muta fenestras. Basking in the flow of his magical powers, Severus noticed Petunia's shocked facial expression and decided to increase her awe by transfiguring his furniture. Firstly, he transfigured his threadbare sofa into a comfy, grey four-seat leather sofa resting on a stylish rug via Transfigura torum by tipping his wand twice on his old sofa, imaging his new sofa inside his head and pronouncing the incantation correctly. Secondly, he changed some broken debris into his large beech wood bookshelf via Transfigura armarium by pointing twice on the wooden debris and imaging his new bookshelf.

In the same fashion, he transfigured his beech wood coffee table, comfy grey leather armchair, and beech wood entertainment cabinet. He enchanted the broken living room table into his little beech wood dinner table and a broken little sideboard into his new, stylish counterpart via an easy Verte supellectilis and produced his four new, grey padded beech wood chairs via a simple, controlled Gemini Spell after he had transfigured one model chair. After he had cast his furniture, he focused on creating a functioning fireplace via an advanced Colloca caminum. To use his new fireplace as a Floo point, he needed to file out an application sheet for a Floo network connection in the Ministry. For the finishing touches, he conjured some framed pictures, cushions curtains, and lamps. Besides that, he accioed his books from his bedroom and their TV from the basement where his bastard of a father must have put it in his rage. He looked around in his living room with a huge smile on his face. Everything looked exactly as Petunia had imagined it. He really loved his magic and the possibilities it created.

Gazing into the direction where Petunia stood, he noticed that her beautiful sapphire eyes were huge and her lovely, pink lips opened into a grimace out of awe for a few minutes. He couldn't stop the happy laugh that escaped his mouth. She really looked so lovely in her slack-jawed state. Before he could overanalyze her reaction, Petunia jumped into his arms with the exclamation "You're truly amazing". A little startled, he could only catch her with some difficulties and hug her tightly. Magic could be truly awesome.


	21. Chapter 20 – Tight hugs awake one's hopes!

Severus' Home, Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia breathed in Severus' herbal mixed with whiskey scent deeply and hugged him tightly. She stroked his back gently and tried to calm her escalating heartbeat. She couldn't believe that she had thrown herself into his arms like this. God, he must really think that she was a very desperate, lonely and confused young woman to throw herself at him like some classless easy girl. Sure, she only needed to hug him tightly and wanted to express her happiness and pride in his magical powers. But it might have come on a little bit too strong.

Well, she couldn't change her impulsive reaction and gut feeling. And if she was completely honest with herself, she regretted nothing and didn't feel ashamed of her reaction because she liked Severus a lot and basked in his body warmth. Hell, she felt all warm, giddy and fuzzy because he returned her close hug, stroked her back gently and even clutched on to her shoulders lovingly. If she would have seen this scene on TV, she probably would have gushed about the closeness, trust and natural aura of the pair. Most likely, she would have commented to her mum or Lily what a refreshing, in-love teenaged couple the pair seemed to be. But she tried to chase this fuzzy, romanticized thoughts away because Severus and she weren't some loved-up couple.

They were close friends who seemed to care deeply for each other, wanted to live out some magical adventures together and wanted to see each other happy. Sure, she felt also attracted to Severus and wanted to kiss him on the lips at this moment, but she didn't want to overanalyze everything. She knew that she would have to face her feelings for Severus head-on someday in the near future. Hell, she needed to sort them out first because feeling attracted to someone who she had loathed in her childhood and youth was a new experience for her. Well, if she was completely honest with herself, she felt butterflies inside her stomach for the first time in her life.

She knew that this sounded horrible and sad because only some months ago, she had expected to marry her abusive boyfriend Vernon although she didn't love him or had been attracted to him. But in her state of mind at that time, a loveless marriage with an abusive husband was better than living a life in loneliness. She had really thought that Vernon could change during their marriage and that the feeling of being close to someone could satisfy her broken heart.

God, how naïve and pathetic she had been? She was so glad that Severus had opened her eyes. She would dump Vernon tomorrow and only be together with someone out of love. She really dreamed of finding her one true love and experiencing a romance of equality, happiness, love, trust, and truthfulness. Perhaps, she thought blushing, she could live out this romance with Severus because she was truly attracted to him. And judging by his tight hugs, long look, and affectionate nature, he might feel the same. But as she stated earlier, she didn't want to overthink her feelings and his reactions and only live in the moment. With luck and courage, she would kiss him full on the lips this night and get her answer.

If he returned her kiss, he must truly feel something for her. For Severus wasn't the type to kiss around out of boredom, lust or curiosity. Actually, she wouldn't be surprised, if he had never kissed someone or his only experiences with kissing stemmed from a "Truth or Dare" game in Hogwarts, an intoxicated make-out session or some youthful teenage experimentation with Lily. Albeit she doubted it because Lily would have surely confessed to exploring kisses with her best male friend to her. So, she hoped that a passionate kiss on the lips would be a huge deal for Severus.

If he rejected her and threw her out of his house, she would know that he wasn't interested in a romance with her. But she would also endanger her adventures in the Magical world. Because she couldn't imagine that Severus would be comfortable to live out magical adventures with a love-crazy female companion. Surely, a rejection would establish an awkward tension between them and embarrass her deeply so that she could say bye to her magical education. God, she would probably flee his house in a rush with a crimson head, mutter a hushed apology and cry a river of devastated tears. Therefore, she would not want to face him again, act like just friends and learn/experience amazing things about magic on the next day. God, please, let him return her crush. She really deserved some adventures, love, and happiness in her life. And Severus could offer her everything. If she could muster up her courage and pump herself up to be bold, straightforward and reckless tonight, she would kiss him.

But first, she needed to help him renovate his kitchen, learn how to brew a potion and interpret his body language right. Gazing up from her huddled position in his arms, she noticed that his obsidian eyes were gleaming with pride, happiness, and gratitude. His facial expressions were relaxed and his arms clutched her body tightly. God, she could stay forever in his embrace. But she needed to end it so that she could encourage him to redecorate his kitchen and start brewing the Laughing Potion with her. She really wanted to see him brew because she couldn't imagine how graceful, powerful and sexy he must look behind a cauldron with his long, nimble fingers cutting ingredients, his capable, masculine hands stirring the ladle and his raven black, long hairs hanging in his face.

Besides her fascination for his sexy looks behind his cauldron, she really wanted to test her abilities at potions brewing and feel like a human being with magical powers for some minutes. For she believed that she could be talented in Potions because she loved science and cooking. Therefore, she wanted to encourage him to face the disastrous state of his kitchen. The place, where his mum had been beaten to death by this bastard Tobias. She hoped that she could be there for him and help him with the interior design as she had done with his living room.

She still couldn't believe how fast he could renovate his whole living room due to his magic. It was awesome and she couldn't wait to see him gracefully cast some spells in his kitchen. She realized that she would most likely have to comfort him in his drab kitchen because it really must burden him to change the room magically where his beloved, magical mum had been murdered. He surely associated some bad memories, dark images and painful actions with his kitchen. Thence, she wanted to be there for him, help him process his grief, change his kitchen décor and create new good memories. Sighing deeply, she stepped a little back, lessened their close embrace, looked him into his beautiful onyx eyes and addressed him, taking all her courage in both hands in a calm, melodic voice.

"Severus, I'm still amazed by the miracles your magic can accomplish. Thanks again for your trust in my abilities as an interior designer. It really means a lot to me. Perhaps, I can help you to christen your living room in the future. I hope that you still like it. If you're are a fan of my design genius", here Petunia paused, laughed a bell-like amused laugh and nudged Severus good-naturedly in his shoulder, "I can help you redecorate your kitchen in the same fashion. We don't have to change it today if you're not ready for it. I would totally understand it. So, do you want to redesign your kitchen now or should we start to brew your Laughing Potion? I'm really excited to learn how to brew it."

Severus returned from his dreamland in a daze. Petunia's melodic voice had awoken him from his daydream and the feelings of happiness, contentment, and hope he had felt while being enveloped in a fierce embrace with Petunia. He had enjoyed breathing in her floral, fresh scent – roses, orange blossoms, mandarin, vanilla -, basking in her body warmth and feeling her perky, full breasts pressed into his skinny, muscular chest. Merlin, he really needed to suppress his sensual thoughts because he had gotten all warm and fuzzy and noticed something stirring below his waistline. With thoughts of Prof. Dumbledore in heart-patterned boxers, he had solved his little problem. For he didn't want to chase Petunia screaming away from his house thanks to his uncontrolled hormones and sexual urges.

At first, he hadn't really known how to tackle his little problem without an embarrassing stunt because he hadn't experienced anything like this during a close hug with a girl he felt attracted to. Sure, like any male teenager he had his sexual needs, raging hormones and wet dreams full of sensual images. But he had managed to keep cool, suppress his urges or satisfy them with some quick, secret and silenced hand jobs under the shower. No girl had ever hugged him closely like Petunia, engaged him in a passionate make-out session or – Merlin forbids – even asked him to shag her. Sure, he knew that his looks weren't desirable and his sullen personality didn't charm the witches either so that he had had to survive lonely, sexless teenaged years. Well, he hadn't planned on losing his virginity to a random fun Slytherin girl anyways because he wanted to experience his first time with a girl he truly loved.

Sure, until recently he had dreamed about Lily being this girl for they had already exchanged a wet, awkward kiss on the lips their fourth year in Hogwarts. Foor experimenting reasons as Lily had labeled it. He had been madly in love with her since and she had been his absolute dream girl with her stunning emerald eyes, shining dark red hair, kind heart, and magical brilliance. Merlin, his experience in kissing was reduced to this awkward, foolish first kiss, some "Truth or Dare" peck on the lips with a female Slytherin yearmate in his fifth year and a few passionate kisses with the Rawenclaw outcast Pandora Rosenstein behind a library bookshelf in his sixth year. Well, his love life or better lack thereof was rather pathetic. And he hoped that he could change this in the future. Perhaps, he could make some new experiences with Petunia because he was really attracted to her, comfortable in her company and loved being physically close to her. And it seemed that she shared his sentiments if he could trust her shy blushes, tight hugs, and happy smiles. He would test out the waters this night if he could muster up all his courage.

First, he really needed to face the issue of renovating his kitchen. Petunia had done an amazing job of helping him redesign his living room and he would need her help in the kitchen too. He was so grateful that she offered her help and support, for the kitchen would be a different story as his living room because his mum had been slaughtered there. Breathing deeply, he gazed back into Petunia's sapphire eyes, squeezed her hand gently and answered.

"Although I must confess that redesigning my kitchen will be a difficult task, I know that I can master everything with your help. Therefore, I would tackle this issue now because we really should have a nice place where I can cook an easy dinner for us later. Thank you so much for your help, you're really a lifesaver and talented interior designer. I couldn't ask for a better friend. I promise that we will brew the Laughing Potion in one hour. But first, let's head to the kitchen." Severus grabbed her hand, held it easily, smiled at her and let her to his kitchen. There was much work to do.


	22. Chapter 21 – Shy kisses warm your heart!

Severus' Home, Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia walked slowly beside Severus, clutching his warm, smooth hand reassuringly. She still blushed at his compliments. God, he had called her an amazing friend and talented interior designer. And he had promised her to brew the Laughing Potion with her after fixing up his kitchen. He was such a charming, kind guy if he wanted to make you feel special. She really hoped that he also felt the sparks between them and that she could call him her boyfriend in the future.

Clearing her mind of her daydreaming, Petunia noticed that Severus had started to breathe audibly in a short frequency. God, his pale face was chalk-like, his piercing onyx eyes looked far away and his posture rigid like a statue. He clutched her hand almost painfully and was nearly hyperventilating. He had stopped their short walk to his kitchen which was only three meters away from his living room and fixed the broken wooden door like looking at a ghost.

Petunia realized that she needed to act as his best friend and support system without scaring him away, making him feel weak or furious and laughing off his psychological trauma of facing the kitchen where his mum had been beaten to death. Thence, she squeezed his hand lovingly, pulled gently at his shoulder and turned his face with her right hand slightly in her direction so that she could break the spell he had been under, gather his attention and look directly in his grief-stricken onyx eyes.

She addressed him in a gentle, melodious tone. "Severus, don't be afraid to walk into your kitchen. I'm by your side and will support you. Nothing can happen to you. I realize that facing the place where your mum has been killed must be extraordinarily hard. But I know that you can handle it because you're the strongest and bravest person I know. God, you refused to join a maniac magical terrorist group that wanted to kill and maim people under the threat of getting on their killing list. You survived the bullying of James Potter and his idiotic friends at Hogwarts who wanted to reduce you to a helpless and broken victim by excelling in school. And you stood up against the beatings and mockings of your violent, alcoholic bastard of a father who wanted to beat your magic out of you under the threat of getting killed.

"Therefore, you can also master the challenge of walking in this kitchen. I won't pretend that I can share your pain or know what you went through because that would be bullshit. But I promise you to listen to your sorrows, back you up and help you to overcome your grief. So, if you're ready, let's move into this kitchen. Everything will be okay. You only have to believe in yourself."

Severus was blown away by Petunia's support and encouraging words. Although bad memories and horrible pictures began to resurface inside his mind, Petunia's words helped him to focus on the tasks lying ahead of him and to muster up all his courage. It was so refreshing to hear Petunia's positive picture of him because everyone else and he himself always seemed to only see him as some weak victim and worthless dark wizard. His bastard of a father had laughed about his weak physical constitution into his face while beating him and insulting him as a fancy, good-for-nothing devilish son. The Marauders had hexed him nonstop because of his fascination with the Dark Arts and had even denied him his right to live. The Death Eaters saw him as a weak, easy pawn that they could use to their advantage in the upcoming war and sacrifice at the right moment. And Lily portrayed him as the evil, dark wizard who had been weak enough to follow a maniac group of killing idiots and had lost all his human characteristics.

It was eye-opening to hear Petunia's positive view of him. It pumped him up to face his nightmares and raised his hopes to be more to Petunia than just her best male friend. It also let a warm feeling bubble up inside his body, spread through his veins and manifest in his heart. She was such a warm, kind and understanding soul that it nearly blew his mind away. She was right. He could face anything with her help. Therefore, Severus squeezed her hand, looked into her trusting sapphire eyes and caressed her rosy cheek. He addressed her in a slightly dazed, but calm voice.

"Petunia, I can't express how much your words mean to me. You're the first person – besides my mum – who really believes in me and vows to be there for me. I promise to grant you the same service. You can come to me whenever you feel the need to speak to someone, hang out with a friend or learn more about the Magical world. I trust that we can achieve everything we dream of if we only work on it together. So, let's open this damned door, fix everything up and fill the room with new energies."

Severus put his hand away from her cheek, breathed in deeply and opened the old, run-down door in one go. The picture presented to them was horrific. Thankfully, the authorities had managed to clean the blood away so that they didn't have to face this nightmare. But every single furniture in the kitchen was hacked into little pieces. Even their old fridge stood there falling apart. Everywhere, wooden debris, empty liquor, and beer bottles, stubbed out cigarettes, rotten food, and broken dishes were lying around. A rotten, nasty smell lingered in the air and the single small window was covered with a thick layer of dust so that the sun could only get sparsely inside the kitchen and the air threatened to take one's breath away.

Bile raised up inside Severus' stomach and he felt ashamed of his living conditions. His bastard of a father had done a nice job of destroying everything in his drunken rage and left his kitchen in a disgusting state. Tears threatened to fall down his cheeks as he imagined his mum's dead body lying between the debris or being smashed with some broken dishes. He breathed deeply in, tried to calm his heartbeat and clear his mind. His bastard of a father wouldn't break him. He would vanish any reminder of him in this room and start fresh with the help of Petunia.

He didn't risk a glance at Petunia because he didn't want to see the pity and horror in her sapphire eyes. Although he knew that she didn't judge him for his poor family background, he couldn't handle her pity. So, instead of looking into her direction, he clutched his wand in his right hand, let go of Petunia's comfort and cast an Air-Refreshing Spell that freed the room of its nasty smell and turned the air in a fresh lemon smell. Thereafter, he enacted a Vanishing Charm that vanished every wooden debris, empty bottles, rotten food, and broken dishes; a Cleaning Spell that cleaned the floor, window and remaining broken furniture and a Repairing Charm that repaired the broken table, chairs, cabinets and lamps in quick succession. His kitchen could be now transfigured in mere minutes.

He felt re-energized and more like a magically accomplished human being instead of a total failure again as his magical powers rushed through his veins. He mustered up all his courage to face Petunia again. He looked into her sapphire eyes and instead of the disgust and pity he had expected to see, he could only detect astonishment, pride, and happiness in her lovely blue eyes. Merlin, she looked so utterly beautiful standing in the middle of his ruined kitchen, her cherry red lips standing open in awe, her sapphire eyes glinting with pride and happiness and her shiny, honey-blond locks flying through the air. For a moment, she seemed to be totally dazzled by his magical abilities, although she had already witnessed him transfiguring his living room with some quick waves of his wand.

At this moment, she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, for she displayed her emotions openly on her face, glowed in an unearthly aura and almost seemed to transfer her positive emotions directly into his heart. Severus swallowed audibly. She took his breath away and he wanted nothing more than to let her know how beautiful she was and how much she meant to him. Therefore, he stepped like on autopilot in front of her, hugged her tightly and whispered inside her ear "You're the most beautiful girl, I have ever seen.". As he registered her widened eyes, audible gasp and wildly beating heart, he wanted to curse himself for his foolishness. Merlin, how stupid could he be to make her such a compliment in a run-down kitchen? She clearly must think that he was mental and wanted to run away screaming bloody murder.

Had his magical induced euphoria really riddled up his brain so much that he had chased away his only female friend and a possible chance at happiness with some sleazy compliment? He already wanted to obliviate himself with his wand as he felt her return his hug fiercely, stroking his back gently and looking into his onyx eyes with disbelief and happiness. She caressed his cheek lovingly, forced him to keep up eye contact and drew her lips closer to his face. Severus' breath nearly stopped as she kissed the left and right corners of his mouth. Merlin, she nearly had kissed him on the lips with her luscious, unbelievably soft lips. If he only turned his head a little bit, he could kiss her fully on the mouth. Shivers went down his spine as Petunia stepped a little back into his arms, touched his right eyebrow and addressed him in an almost breathless, clear voice.

"Oh, Severus. This was the best compliment I have ever received. You can't imagine how much this means to me. I'm really flattered by it. Thank you. For making me feel good inside my body, desirable, believing in me, encouraging me to change my life and letting me witness the miracles of magic. You're truly special to me. And in my opinion, the most handsome and bravest man I have ever seen. I wanted to show my feelings to you with these simple, affectionate kisses. I hope, I didn't overstep some boundaries and you need to know that I don't expect anything of you. God, I don't even understand my feelings myself. But I can assure you that I'm drawn to you like a moth to a flame. And I want to experience some beautiful, extraordinary moments with you if you will still have me."

She blushed a deep red, began to slightly tremble and gazed at him with uncertainty, fear of rejection and hope in her beautiful eyes. At first, Severus didn't want to trust his ears. No one had ever called him handsome, wanted to be near him or test out the waters with him in a romantic sense. Merlin, Petunia had confessed that she felt attracted to him and wanted to create happy memories with him. Hell, he felt like the happiest man on the planet because she seemed to return his feelings. He knew that he must look like a love-crazy fool as his thin lips spread into a lopsided smile. As he noticed her rising fears, he decided to act on instinct, throw his caution away and show her his feelings with his actions. Therefore, he took her round, beautiful face into his trembling hands, looked into her eyes and kissed her quickly on the lips. As her soft lips graced his thin ones for a moment, he felt a warmth spread through his body. Although he only kissed her briefly, for he didn't want to chase her away with his straightforwardness and was a little embarrassed about his only rudimentary kissing skills, he got intoxicated to her cherry tasting soft lips and rosy scent.

Holding her tightly in a close embrace, he released her lips, calmed his wildly beating heart and confessed in a shaky voice. "Oh, Petunia. Thank you so much for your compliment. They warm my shattered heart and pump up my self-esteem. Although I know that I'm not the most handsome or magically talented man on earth. But I'm happy to be the most handsome man in your eyes. That's all that's important to me. I'm also deeply attracted to you and you would make me the happiest man on earth if you wanted to act on these feelings between us. I feel deeply connected to you and my heart almost escalates in your closeness. So, do you want to have an Italian dinner date with me in my kitchen after we have fixed everything up? I'm not the best cook, but I can assure you that you'll love my Penne Napolitana." Severus waited with bated breath on her response.


	23. Chapter 22 – Love confessions and kisses in the kitchen!

Severus' Home, Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Petunia escaped a little pleasurable moan as Severus kissed her. God, she wasn't dreaming. The intelligent, empathetic and handsome young man she was attracted to had really kissed her on the lips. Butterflies kept fluttering in Petunia's stomach. Life really was an awesome roller coaster ride. At the moment, she was on a definite high and she wanted to keep it at that as long as possible. She kissed Severus tenderly back. His luscious, soft lips tasted like an intoxicating mix of liquor, mint, and apples. They felt so soft and graced her lips so lovingly that she could cry out in pleasure and happiness. Never before in her life had a man kissed her so tenderly. He really treated her like some breakable, precious china doll and Petunia loved any minute of it. Sure, he had only kissed her for mere seconds. But his gentle gesture, shy smile, the boyish mischievous glint in his addicting onyx eyes and happiness radiating aura nearly blew her away.

She fell even more for him during this first kiss. Every boy before him had treated her like a living sex doll. Vernon had touched her breasts roughly with his meaty hands and shoved his slobbery tongue inside her mouth whenever he liked it. He didn't take no for an answer and touched or kissed her even if she hadn't been in the mood for it. Nowadays she knew that his behavior was inexcusable, selfish and a crime in itself. She should have escaped from his psycho-terror abusing hands and unwanted kisses a long time ago. But she had believed that he would be the only man who would ever love her, look at her with desire in his eyes and would want to marry her. His brainwashing tactics had nearly destroyed her. But thanks to Severus, she now looked forward into a happy, self-independent, self-confident and carefree future.

God, she missed his warm lips already and wanted nothing more than to kiss him again. Her heart beat wildly, nearly jumped out of her chest, as he held her in a tight, loving embrace and declared his feelings to her. She nearly couldn't believe her ears. He felt the deep connection, insane attraction and passionate feelings between them and wanted to act on them. God, he even invited her to an Italian dinner date in his fixed kitchen. Penne Napolitana – a meal that he would cook for her. Never in her life had Petunia felt so happy, loved and well-cared for. Severus was truly amazing, unique and special. She hoped that their mutual feelings would develop into an epic, true love story. But she shouldn't daydream about a far-away future. She should enjoy this moment. Receiving her first kind of love declaration from her former childhood nemesis, a wizard to boot, who she felt deeply attracted to and considered her new, best male friend, nearly reduced her to a giddy, happy schoolgirl.

Warmth rushed through her veins, send her heart nearly in an escalating mood, blushed her cheeks in a nice pink and plastered a huge, beaming and heartfelt smile on her face. She was so ridiculously happy that she nearly didn't notice Severus' self-conscious behavior. His huge, sparkling obsidian eyes looked afraid of rejection, his warm, regular breath didn't grace her cheek and his heart rate seemed to tumble down. God, he was afraid that she would reject his date and slap his face instead, before running screaming bloody murder out of his house. How could he be so insecure about her feelings? Hadn't she mere minutes ago confessed her feelings to him, returned his kiss and basked in his embrace? Well, she could understand his low self-confidence and fear of rejection to some extent, for she also always thought that no one could possibly desire her, want to spend time with her and love her. They were two kindred spirits. Two love-starved, lonely souls that only wanted to be loved and understood.

To free him from his insecurities, Petunia kissed him soundly on the lips. She tried to put as much passion, love, and desire into this kiss as possible so that he wouldn't question her wish to date him again. God, she loved the feel of his soft lips against her. And she loved to taste his unique mix of liquor, mint, and apples. She could kiss him senseless for the rest of her life. Especially, when his right hand caressed her cheek gently and his left hand stroked her lower back lovingly. A little moan escaped her mouth as Severus returned her kiss in fervor, pressing his soft lips firmly against hers and nibbling gently on her bottom lip. Hell, she went nearly insane with the desire to engage in a full-blown, battle of tongues kiss. But she didn't want to rush anything with him.

Besides that, French kisses with Vernon had really sucked in the past, so she wasn't keen on trying them out with Severus. Sure, she imagined French kisses with Severus to be a mind-boggling, satisfying experience, for he cared for her feelings, treated her like some precious treasure and didn't only act on his needs. But she didn't want to test it out. They were only at the start of their romance, never even had their first date, so that she would wait a little longer for optimizing her French kisses' technique. Clutching his back closely, feeling his heart beating in sync with her own and his warm lips kissing her rosy lips passionately, Petunia felt like the happiest girl in the whole world.

Severus had become her new beau, best friend, confidant, partner-in-crime, and instructor to the Magical world in such a short time that it nearly knocked her out. She basked in his sweet, fierce kisses for some minutes more, until she stepped back with a dreamy smile on her face to draw some greatly needed air. She took in his swollen lips, darkly gleaming dilated pupils, rosy cheeks and boyish smile. He looked so adorable as he also tried to steady his escalating heartbeat and take in some much needed fresh air that she could kiss him again. But looking around at the run-down kitchen, empty cupboards and baren walls, Petunia realized that they needed to focus on fixing the kitchen if they wanted to enjoy their first dinner date in this place later this evening.

God, he had promised to cook some delicious Penne Napolitana for her. Thinking about his thoughtfulness and gentleman-like offer to prepare an Italian meal only for her, Petunia gushed in her mind. Apparently, he didn't expect the woman to run the kitchen and cater him. Well, Petunia thought smiling to herself, he was definitely progressive and civilly. And if he could cook as good as he could brew his potions, she would be in for a culinary masterwork. It was her luck that she had such a multi-talented, progressive and charming beau. But they needed to fix his mess of a kitchen before they could enjoy a romantic candle-light dinner. Therefore, she decided to express her acceptance of his date with some reassuring words, point out the issue of his kitchen and offer him some help as his interior designer again. So, she loosened their tight embrace, gazed into his piercing onyx eyes and addressed him in an enthusiastic tone.

"Oh, Severus. I'm so happy right now. I would love nothing more than to have this Italian dinner with you. I can't wait to taste your Penne Napolitana. They must be a culinary firework if they are as magnificent as your potions. And you would make me the happiest girl in the world if we acted on our feelings for each other. I'm deeply attracted to you and can barely keep my hands off you. Our first kisses were the sweetest, most passionate kisses I have ever experienced. And I can't wait to explore our mutual affections more. You have become the most important person in my life in only one day. And I know that I need to break it off with Vernon before anything between us can fully blossom.

I will send him to hell tomorrow so that I'm freed from his abusive, vile comments and hands. In the meantime, we can explore our feelings during our first date. But before we can think about cooking in this kitchen and enjoy a simple, lovely dinner, we need to fix it up. Give me one minute and I will come up with a new interior design for your kitchen. I will show it to you via your awesome spell. You don't know, how unique, wonderful and kind you're in my eyes." Petunia kissed him lovingly on his cheek and squeezed his hand gently. After that, she drifted off for a minute into her thoughts, to envision a new kitchen design.

Severus was blown away by the new romantic and affectionate level of their relationship. She had agreed to have an Italian dinner date with him, repeated her love confession and willingness to act on their feelings and even bestowed passionate kisses on his lips. Merlin, she even agreed to envision a new kitchen design, present it to him via the Mental Images Extraction Spell and help him to fix everything up. She was a true angel that lights up his dark life. He truly hoped that their relationship would develop into a full-blown, fairytale-like romance because he couldn't imagine living his days without her presence.

And damn. He wanted to kiss her senseless the whole day. Her soft lips, floral scent, and cherry taste were really highly addictive and he hoped to explore their feelings some more this evening. For the first time in his life, Severus had a positive outlook on his future. He was optimistic about his life, although he was in danger of being targeted by the Death Eaters and without an apprenticeship in Potions or money. But he vowed to get his life in order by fighting in league with Dumbledore, working his ass off for an apprenticeship and establishing a real romance with Petunia. Perhaps, he could even fix his friendship with Lily. He was so excited to live out some magical adventures with Petunia, introduce her to the Magical world and show her the fine art of potion brewing that he nearly burst out of happiness.

Merlin, he even hoped to share his first French kisses with Petunia on this evening, although the images of battling tongues, nibbling teeth and devouring mouths would have put him off this morning. Hell, he was nervous about it and hoped to not mess everything up. But he trusted Petunia to ease his nerves and be relaxed about it. He looked at her focused beautiful sapphire eyes, tightly pressed lips, slightly scrunched up nose and bow-tight thinker pose. She looked so adorable right now that he barely stopped himself from kissing her all over her face. He couldn't believe his luck. He had gained a loyal friend, beautiful girlfriend and understanding confidant in one day. Life really was amazing. And strong feelings could hit you via the most unexpected ways.

He decided to express his gratitude to his highly focused girlfriend by surprising her with a gentle kiss on her temple, a lovingly touch on her hips and gushing praises. "Petunia, you can't know how adorable and wonderful you're. I also loved our fiery kisses very much and can't wait to experience some adventures with you. I'm sure that your new ideas for my kitchen will be awesome and our dinner date a real milestone in my life. You have managed to light up my world and change my life for the better. I only hope that my Penne Napolitana will fulfill your high expectations because excellence in potion brewing doesn't necessarily equal excellence in cooking. I can't express how grateful I'm for your support, affections, and care. You are truly unique, magnificent and beautiful."

Petunia looked at him startled for a minute, basked in his warmth and praise and gave him a quick peck on the lips. It was so easy, wonderful and skin-tingling to exchange some tender touches and kisses with him. She didn't know how she got so lucky to live out her dreams in such a short time. She had always dreamed of meeting her Prince Charming, engaging in a fairy-tale romance, feeling beautiful, acting self-confident and experiencing some wonders in the Magical world. Her love affair with Severus promised to make her dreams come true. And she couldn't wait about experiencing everything with him. She gave him a beaming smile and responded to his love praising words in kind.

"Oh, Severus. You really make me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. Your compliments really touch me because I know that they come from the bottom of your heart. And don't fret. Your pasta will surely be delicious because you are multi-talented, humble and special. I have managed to think about a new interior design for your kitchen inside my head. So, will you please work your awesome magic so that I can show it to you?" Petunia asked him in a cheeky way. Life really was so much fun.


	24. Chapter 23 – The electrifying tingles of magic!

Severus' Home, Spinner's End, Cokeworth, July 1978

Severus couldn't stop the beaming smile that was plastered on his face and transformed his sullen face into a no doubt grotesque grimace. But he didn't give a damn about his appearance or how sappy he might look. His beautiful girlfriend kissed him affectionately on the lips, accepted him for who he was and trusted him enough to let him see inside her mind via magic. His life was a surreal happy dream. He would have never guessed that the seemingly magic-hating Petunia Evans would be so excited to see a spell being cast. Merlin, he had thought until yesterday that Petunia would sneer at him, insult him as a greasy bastard and threaten to call the Aurors if he performed magic in front of her eyes. What a difference a day and a heart-to-heart talk could make.

Now, Petunia was his chance to find happiness, experience real love and believe in his abilities as a talented potions brewer. Hell, she had rescued him from a fate as an evil murdering servant to a crazy Lord and gave him hope to change his life for good. He would try everything in his power to make this new foreign romance work. He was already addicted to her sweet kisses, tender touches, and heart-warming love confessions. He couldn't wait to spend many happy hours with her. Living out magical adventures, discussing their daily life and dreams and making out with her in his newly renovated house. He really was some lucky bastard.

He pecked Petunia quickly on the lips, savored in her cherry taste and floral scent, and stroked her side affectionately. Looking in her clear, sparkling sapphire eyes, he wanted nothing more than to gift her the world and show her how deep his love for her was with passionate kisses, frenzied touches, and tender caresses. But they needed to move on with renovating his kitchen, cooking Penne Napolitana and brewing the Laughing Potion. Therefore, he addressed her in a gushing voice.

"Petunia, I can't express to you how happy I'm right now. Although I'm really tempted to kiss you senseless, I know that we should move on with our evening plans. I can't wait to see your doubtless classy plans for my new kitchen. So, if you are ready, I would like to cast the Mental Images Extraction Spell. Relax, focus on the new design of my kitchen and keep eye contact with me. I promise that I will be gentle." Severus waited for Petunia's sign. Her quick nod, trustful look, and gentle squeeze signaled her readiness. He clasped his beloved wand tightly in his hand, concentrated on the incantation Ostende fantasias and tipped his wand gentle on her temple. He looked into her alluring crystal blue eyes and waited for her mental image to transform.

Petunia felt a little nudge inside her mind, basked in the electrifying tingle of Severus' magical energies and focused her inner eye on the new interior design for Severus' kitchen. She couldn't wait to see her plans transforming out in thin air via a magical hologram-like image above her head, to see the awe in Severus' eyes and to hear his approval. For she had no doubt that he would like her ideas and trusted in her taste. If she was completely honest with herself this whole renovating the house business after her taste made her feel really special and grateful, for she could live out her creative side and help him transform his house almost like his wife-to-be. God, Petunia knew that thinking in these terms and envisioning a happy future with him in wedded bliss was dangerous and rather fast thinking on her side. But she couldn't stop herself from dreaming of a happy future inside this house with Severus by her side.

Sure, she had not even broken thing off with the tyrant Vernon yet and didn't know Severus as a woman should know her fiance. But she felt such a deep connection with him and so in love that her mind couldn't stop picturing this new kitchen as her dream kitchen. Therefore, the picture above their heads showed Petunia's dream kitchen. The walls were painted in a fresh, friendly lime green, mixed up with a lovely cream colored decorative wallpaper picturing green apples that would grace the wall on the left side of the kitchenette, where a little sycamore kitchen table with four matching simple sycamore chairs with lime green upholstery would be placed. The ceiling was painted in cream, whereas the floor consisted of a light brown vinyl floor. The kitchen cabinets themselves were held in graphite tones, complete with chrome-colored door handles, a sycamore wood worktop and a chrome-colored exhaust hood.

The kitchen unit contained the following features. Three wall cupboards for dishes, glasses, cups and bowls, one sink unit cupboard with a high-grade steel sink, storage space for bins and cleaning agents and a chrome-colored dishwasher, one cooktop unit cupboard with a four-platted ceramic glass hob, a floor unit composed of two huge drawers for pots and pans as well as supplies and a smaller floor unit consisting of one small drawer for silverware as well as one bigger drawer for a mixer, immersion blender and food processor. Besides that, her kitchen united included an apothecary cabinet with two drawers for spices and more supplies and an oven unit cupboard with a baking oven on eye level above an integrated refrigerator with a freezer.

The finishing touches in the room were the grey colored window frame encircling the double-glazed window that was seated around the corner of the little kitchen table. On the granite windowsill set herb pots like parsley, basil, and chives above a simple, horizontal heater. The lime green wall opposite the kitchen unit was decorated with cream-colored framed pictures of green apples and deciduous trees and the whole kitchen was lit up by a warm yellow light emitting rectangular ceiling lamp.

Petunia still gazed in awe at the projected image. She still couldn't fathom the seemingly endless possibilities of magic and couldn't wait to see Severus enact her ideas with a few spells and flicks of his wand. Although she still felt a little jealous pang for not being gifted with this special, mind-blowing and life-simplifying powers, she felt overjoyed and blessed to witness Severus casting spells. Sure, a part deep inside of her heart still yearned to be magical as well. But she couldn't force something that wasn't meant to be. And she could still enjoy the perks of magic and see its wonders, even partake in some, if she embarked on her romance with Severus. Therefore, she gazed in his gorgeous, pride-full sparkling obsidian eyes, threw her arms tightly around his neck and encouraged him to voice his opinion of her new kitchen designs.

"Well, Severus. What do you say to my design ideas for your kitchen? Although I'm still blown away by the wonders of this spell, the electrifying tingle of your magical energies and the realistic quality of this hologram, I can barely contain my suspense for your reactions. Do you like it? If something isn't to your liking, I'm sure that we can come up with something new. Please stay assured that I won't take some critique personally, for your kitchen should surely also be designed to your liking. So, if something is bothering you, you can voice it without being afraid of my fury. I promise to enjoy our pasta date regardless of your reaction."

Severus put his arms around Petunia's middle, planted a sweet kiss on her cheek and addressed her concerns in a calm voice.

"Petunia, I know that I could voice my honest opinion about your design plans without enraging you. But you don't need to fear a negative reaction to your plans on my part. In fact, I love your design ideas, because as a true Slytherin green is my favorite color. And the sycamore furniture and grey kitchen cabinets are exactly my taste, for I like natural materials and earthy colors. So, I will transfigure this kitchen according to your ideas in a few minutes. I still can't fathom how you can come up with these amazing ideas without missing any valuable items in such a short time. You have really a gift in the design department and I can't express with words how lucky I'm to have such a multi-talented, beautiful and kind girlfriend, for you don't only know how to design a room, you also know how to deal with money and numbers.

"So, if your career as a business consultant doesn't work out for you, I'm sure that you would be really successful in managing your own interior design business. But the fact that I'm the only human on the planet right now who is gifted with your superior design skills, makes me feel really special. Thence, if you don't mind, I will give you a short lesson in Transfiguration and Charms and change this sorry excuse of a kitchen from hell into this dream version in no time, for I really want to move on to our pasta date real quick. And I can already say that it will be an even greater pleasure to cook inside this new dream kitchen for you. So, thank you again for your help and being you, Petunia."

Severus expressed his gratitude with a tender kiss on Petunia's red lips. Petunia returned his tender kiss, giggled slightly as he nibbled on her bottom lip and sighed happily into the kiss. Severus heart-warming, touching compliments had forced a sole happy tear out of her sapphire eyes because nobody had paid her any compliments before. This affectionate, easy-going and loved up relationship was so new to her, cause Vernon had only insulted her for her solid Cup B breasts and slightly curved figure as an unsexy tomboy, her career plans in business and finance studies as a feminist hag and her refusing to have sex with him as a frigid, cold bitch.

And his touches were always firm, painful grasps, unwanted, disgusting gropes and bruising, hateful kisses. She was so lucky to escape this abusive hell of a relationship and be in this lovely, caring romance right now. Thence, Petunia clung to Severus' surprisingly strong back, shared some tender kisses with him and only broke off their air-stealing kisses with great reluctance. But she really was giddy with happiness and excitement and couldn't wait to feel his magical energies tingle on her skin and his amazing charms work out in front of her eyes. Therefore, she nudged him playfully on to transfigure his run-down kitchen.

Severus chuckled amused, feeling invigorated by her kisses and excitement to see him cast some spells. She really gave him the feeling that he could fulfill every single one of his dreams and change the world with his magical powers. It was such a unique feeling that someone believed whole-heartedly in him, was his new champion and praised him for his magical powers that Severus felt truly touched and loved by it. He would do anything to see her sapphire eyes light up or her beaming smile on her beautiful face. Besides that, he loved to cast spells, feel the magical energy rush through his veins and see a beautiful transformation enact in front of his eyes. Therefore, he gave her a cheeky grin, a faked bow with the words "As your majesty wishes", clutched his dark wooden wand tightly and concentrated on the correct wand movements and incantations.

First, he changed the floor via a non-verbal Transfigura solum into the light brown vinyl floor, the ceiling via a non-verbal Colora constratum into a cream color and walls via a quick, audible swishing Colora parities to impress Petunia into a lime green color, concentrating hard on getting the decorative wallpaper with the green apples on the wall on the right side beside the window right. After that, he transfigured the old, wind-letting in window via an audible Muta fenestram into its new grey-colored and double-glassed glory with a granite, herbs inhabited windowsill and charmed the old lightbulb on the ceiling into the new stylish ceiling lamp via Transfigura lucernam.

Next, he transformed the old, broken kitchen table and chairs via Transfigura mensam/sedilia into their new sycamore counterparts and changed wooden debris in any furniture item of his new graphite kitchen unit. With a verbal Verte armarium he transfigured one wall cupboard that he multiplied due to a simple Gemini Spell in three and transfixed on the wall with an easy non-verbal Permanent Sticking Charm. With a simple Verte armaria he created one sink unit cupboard, one cooktop unit cupboard, one oven unit cupboard, two floor units and an apothecary cabinet with the correct number of drawers.

He spelled everything with an easy Wingardium leviosa on its right place, but he needed to transfigure the electrical appliances out of their broken forerunners. Therefore he turned the broken fridge with a powerful Transfigura fridge into the new shiny chrome-colored fridge-freezer, his rusty coal-burning stove with a Transfigura stove and Electrify item into the new shiny chrome-colored oven, ceramic glass hob, and exhaust hood and transfigured his new dishwasher out of an old, broken radio. He could only transform the old, aluminum sink into its new high-grade steel sink with a non-verbal Verte sink and a powerful Repero waterpipe.

To make the old system of wires work in his new kitchen unit, he spelled a Reparo wiring over the whole kitchen and connected the new gadgets with an Applica gadgets. Last, but not least, he turned wooden debris into the cream-color framed nature pictures with a Verte picture frame, transfixed them on the wall with Permanent Sticking Charms, vanished every rotten supply with a simple Vanishing Spell out of the new cupboards and fridge and preserved every good food or kitchen item with a powerful Conserving Spell or Sorting Spell. Although the extreme use of his magical powers exhausted him, he felt a pure joy pulsing through his veins as he saw Petunia's amazed face. Furthermore, he felt really powerful. Like a billionaire who could fulfill every wish of his dream girl and basked in the lingering tingles of his magical energies. He could almost smell the magic in their air and sense its powers vibrating tingles.

He also noticed that Petunia's skin seemed to radiate with a new glow and trembled slightly. That was an odd occurrence, for Muggles usually weren't that affected by spells that were cast not upon them, but in their close proximity. He didn't know why Petunia seemed to be electrified by his magical energies, but he vowed to research this phenomenon at another time. Now, he wanted to relish their happiness and enjoy a lovely dinner date with her. Therefore, he put his wand in his trouser pocket, approached her with a warm smile and hugged her tightly. Magic really electrified every fiber in his body and made his life so colorful.


End file.
